§7311A Quality Management Officers

Summary

Creates a single top quality manager for the Veterans Health Administration. The Under Secretary for Health must pick an official to be the National Quality Management Officer. That person reports straight to the Under Secretary. They must set and enforce the rules for the system that checks care quality. They must build an overall quality measure using existing data sources (for example, surgical and inpatient reviews and outside peer reviews). They must watch current quality measures on a regular basis so problems are found quickly. They must support research to make better quality measures. They must also set up a confidential way for staff to report quality concerns and make sure doctors’ actions are reviewed by peers. The Under Secretary can give other related duties as needed. Regional directors must name a network quality officer who reports to the regional director and the national officer. That person runs the network quality office and makes sure all facilities in the network follow the quality rules. Each medical facility director must name a facility quality officer who reports to the director and the network officer and who creates and runs local quality programs that meet the national requirements. Money can be appropriated as needed, and $25,000,000 is authorized for the two fiscal years that begin after this law is enacted to pay for making the aggregate metric, routine monitoring, and quality-metric research.