Noteboom The Law Firm

New DoD and VA Joint Specialty Health Care Clinic Opens

October 22, 2010 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) have joined forces to open a clinic specializing in heart, lung, and vascular care. The clinic is located at the David Grant USAF Medical Center (DGMC) in California and opened on October 13th. This is the newest program bringing together DoD and VA healthcare workers to establish a clinic with a wide range of services in a one-stop-shop facility. 

This clinic is one step to "bridging the gap" of health care as soldiers move from active duty to veterans. In building this clinic, the two departments have developed a more advanced cardiovascular care program. It took 3 years to develop the joint clinic, which includes: 

• A catheter lab;
• A cardiology-vascular operating room; and
• A cardiac intensive care unit.

Not only does the clinic serve as a one-stop shop for cardiovascular care, it will provide both specialists and surgeons with state-of-the-art technology. More impressively, specialists employed at the clinic will be able to perform procedures requiring multiple actions without having to have the patient moved from room to room or even facility to facility.

The DGMC staff of VA-DOD employees is the nation's largest. The joint venture between the VA and the DoD has produced a vital facility which will provide research resources far into the future as well as serve as a training facility for other medical specialists.