The Washington Monthly has an excellent article on care quality in the VA health system. It’s well worth reading. There’s also an excellent analysis of that article by John Rodat at Health Signals New York.

I won’t say too much more other than all the studies about how well the VA is doing with DM have all been read here by diligent THCB readers, and the idea about throwing the VA open to everyone was postulated by Dave Moskowitz on these pages a few months back. I don’t know whether Phillip Longman, the new article’s author, is merely thinking the same great thoughts — but if not, well Dave, theft is the most sincere form of flattery!

My only add would be that I had a an excellent nurse practitioner, Susan Johnston from the VA facility in Temple, Texas, on my panel at the disease management for diabetes conference last week. Sue leads the telemedicine program in the VA in central Texas and using a system from Health Hero Network she has achieved remarkable results in improving the health outcomes of patients with diabetes on her program. It’s clear that the VA is leading the way in the use of telemedicine for the care of the sickest diabetics, and it’s also clear that she and her colleagues are as dedicated and as clinically excellent as any in the nation. And any significant improvement in care whether here or elsewhere in the world needs both dedicated and talented people and new systems of care.  As the IOM reported in Crossing the Chasm we can’t keep pushing our people to do more and do better without changing the system of care in which they work.

UPDATE: The ever wonderful Jane Sarasohn Kahn points THCB to a study from RAND put out last December that shows that 12 VA regions bested their surrounding community practitioners on chronic care, preventative care and disease management–and in fact any care that required a tracking process.