Noteboom The Law Firm

Inconsistent VA Policies Put Patients In Danger

October 1, 2010 - Every Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center is bound by specific rules in buying disposable and reusable medical supplies. This is done so the medical center's equipment can be preserved and followed as it is used. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently performed audits on these procedures and found multiple VA medical centers seemingly following conflicting policies.

Because of the inconsistencies between the medical centers, patients were likely exposed to risk of communicable diseases. The medical centers were purchasing equipment they did not need. The policy was the problem, not whether the medical centers were following those policies or not, according to the GAO.

The GAO's audit found the problems in the policies came in many flavors. There were holes in some policies that directly contributed to multiple patients being placed in unsafe situations. The biggest issues in the policies the GAO discovered were:   

• Being ambiguous;
• Being inconsistent; and
• Being contradictory.

Although the GAO found problems with many of the existing policies, they did not conclude the problems applied to the entire VA system. Nevertheless, the VA is looking to change some of "their purchasing and tracking policies."

The VA is building a brand new system to track their inventory which should be ready by March 2011. The system will hopefully allow them to follow dispensable and reusable medical inventory as it progresses through the VA medical health care system. This would give the VA the ability to easily locate recalled inventory, for example, so they are not used on patients.

The VA is treating the development of the inventory system as a main concern because it deals with patient safety.