VA studies: PTSD care inconsistent

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VA studies: PTSD care inconsistent
By Chris Adams | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, September 16, 2007


WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs, which touts its special programs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in returning soldiers, spends little on those programs in some parts of the country, and some of its efforts fail to meet some of the VA's own goals, according to internal reports obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

In fiscal year 2006, the reports show, some of the VA's specialized PTSD units spent a fraction of what the average unit did. Five medical centers — in California, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin — spent about $100,000 on their PTSD clinical teams, less than one-fifth the national average.

The documents also show that while the VA's treatment for PTSD is generally effective, nearly a third of the agency's inpatient and other intensive PTSD units failed to meet at least one of the quality goals monitored by a VA health-research organization. The VA medical center in Lexington, Ky., failed to meet four of six quality goals, according to the internal reports.

A top VA mental-health official dismissed the reports' significance, saying veterans receive adequate care, either in specialized PTSD units or from general mental-health providers. In addition, he said, some of the spending differences aren't as extreme as the documents indicate, and the department is working to increase its resources for mental health treatment.

As the VA prepares for a surge of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans experiencing PTSD, it's come under fire for staffing and funding shortfalls in its mental health units and for the wide differences in how much it spends on such treatment at its medical centers.

The agency maintains that it delivers consistently high-quality treatment. "The best measurement of success, and what really counts, is how well we are doing in improving our patients' health," the agency's top medical official, Michael Kussman, said in a statement to McClatchy Newspapers earlier this year. "When we make comparisons among our facilities, our results are uniformly positive."


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19626.html