Abstract

Federal Healthcare Planning: No More Guess Work!
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Chase Gatlin, Mark Guagliardo, Kevin Willis, Christopher Richmond

As the nation's largest integrated healthcare system, the Veterans Health Administration oversees approximately 1,000 health care delivery sites for over 8.5 million enrolled Veterans. Due to the ever changing needs and location of enrollees, the spatial balance between population demand and infrastructure must be recalibrated. This presentation will discuss a new approach to local, regional, and national federal healthcare planning that harnesses the power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Challenged with an aging infrastructure, budget constraints, and the need to optimize health care access for our nation's Veterans, the location-allocation tool may prove to be of great assistance regarding such Veteran centric concerns. By employing this approach we hope to develop a new road map for optimizing the locations of service sites. We will demonstrate how the VHA Planning Systems Support Group (PSSG), is using location-allocation analysis in a way that could change the face of VHA's infrastructure landscape.