Dysfunction of Veterans Health Administration and Story behind the Scandal 2014

Abstract

Department of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in US is one of the largest executive departments in the nation, providing crucial short and long-term medical assistance to veterans and their families. In April 2014, whistleblowers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, exposed rampant wrong-doing and cover-ups heated debates regarding the reasons why veterans are alleged to have died for long time waiting, inappropriate scheduling practices, false record keeping, budget mismanagement, lack of accountability, information gap and secret waiting list. At this point, veterans not only in Phoenix’s but also all over the country have been affected by the aforementioned problems. The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of the available evidence-based news, documents and literature concerning the VHA’s scandal of 2014 and to discover the behind causes. It is hoped that this study will inform the reader about how a service providing system faces dysfunction and how performance can be improve. Although this research focuses on a particular event, it constructs a generalized framework for addressing such issues in future. It will set examples for other countries to take proactive as well as preventive measures in response to these events. This model may also be tested in real time environments in small scale in different countries before applying in a large scale.

Key words: The Veteran Health Administration, Performance Dysfunction, The VA scandal 2014.