‘Veterans Affairs shifting its focus to remote areas’

 The Department of Veterans Affairs is now “shifting” its focus from high density areas to small density populations, which include the Pacific Islands like the CNMI and Guam.

Dr. James E. Hastings, director of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System, said that Veterans Affairs has been focused on densely populated cities and “didn’t spend as much of an effort” in rural areas.

“What we’re doing now is changing that-shifting-and we’re putting a big emphasis on developing rural health care, taking care of people in more remote areas, in the areas where they live, in the moving out of putting people in boxes, in hospitals, and do more at trying to take care of them wherever they live,” Hastings told Saipan Tribune.

Hastings was on island for the Saipan Veterans Town Hall Meet attended by about 30 veterans and their family members on Nov. 16 at the American Memorial Park Visitors Center Theater in Garapan.

Hastings, who also chairs the Department of Medicine at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, was joined during his brief visit to Saipan by Andrew Dahlburg, Craig Oswald, and Michael C. Soucie, also of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System.

Hastings said that while the Pacific Islands are in an “isolated” and “very rural” place, there are also other rural and isolated places in the U.S. mainland.

He noted that VA wasn’t that supportive of low density and isolated places across the nation when he joined the organization six years ago. VA’s focus has since then changed, he said, “largely” under the leadership of Secretary Eric Shinseki, who is changing the way VA sees its role.

“We’re pushing to do more outreach, to go out into these areas and find some of our remote and isolated populations and build healthcare in these areas and to try and build systems that will allow our veterans to improve their quality of life,” he explained.

This change, Hastings said, is part of an ongoing national movement in the U.S. called “patient-centered care” which is widening the definition of how VA ends up interacting with patients to improve access to healthcare.

“That’s what we’re trying to build and I think our efforts are parallel to what’s going on nationally in how healthcare is evolving,” added Hastings.