Service Opportunities to Improve Health Equity for Veterans

Abstract

This research paper seeks to identify areas where gaps may exist in the health services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). It will first provide a brief history of the Department of Veterans Affairs and discuss how the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) aims to provide health care to service members. In continuation, the paper will describe the VHA’s Office of Health Equity’s (OHE) mission to ensure that all service members receive the medical care they need by removing barriers to receiving treatment. The focus of analysis will be data that has been generated by the VA regarding potential opportunities for services by geography. These opportunities will be compared to services provided by existing VA facilities. This comparison will allow for discovery of potential services that can be added to established VA facilities to help increase health equity. From these discoveries potential recommendations will be proposed for focus by the VA. The paper will explain research methodology, explore data collection and analysis techniques, incorporate visualizations produced using Tableau software and elaborate on lessons learned. Research for this paper has been supported by the OHE and Tableau.