§7318 — Title 38 Veterans' Benefits | U.S. Code

Summary

The Under Secretary for Health must create and run a National Center for Preventive Health inside the Veterans Health Administration. The Center will be located at a VA health care facility and led by a Director of Preventive Health. The Under Secretary must give the Center enough staff and support. The Center’s main jobs are to watch over VHA preventive health services and to help expand and improve clinical care, research, and training about those services. The Director must keep current information on VHA clinical and research work, including regular services and patient education or screening programs. The Director must share useful research and clinical practices from inside and outside the VHA with VA staff, help start and support cooperative research when VA leaders ask, and advise VA health-care staff on planning and providing preventive services. Congress may approve $1,500,000 each fiscal year from the VA Medical Care General and Special Fund for the Center’s research, clinical, educational, and administrative work. Those activities count as part of VA health-care facility operations no matter where they take place. The term “preventive health services” is defined in section 1701(9).

Title 38, §7318

Veterans' Benefits — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)(1)The Under Secretary for Health shall establish and operate in the Veterans Health Administration a National Center for Preventive Health (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Center”). The Center shall be located at a Department health care facility.

(2)The head of the Center is the Director of Preventive Health (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Director”).

(3)The Under Secretary for Health shall provide the Center with such staff and other support as may be necessary for the Center to carry out effectively its functions under this section.

(b)The purposes of the Center are the following:

(1)To provide a central office for monitoring and encouraging the activities of the Veterans Health Administration with respect to the provision, evaluation, and improvement of preventive health services.

(2)To promote the expansion and improvement of clinical, research, and educational activities of the Veterans Health Administration with respect to such services.

(c)In carrying out the purposes of the Center, the Director shall do the following:

(1)Develop and maintain current information on clinical activities of the Veterans Health Administration relating to preventive health services, including activities relating to—

(A)the on-going provision of regularly-furnished services; and

(B)patient education and screening programs carried out throughout the Administration.

(2)Develop and maintain detailed current information on research activities of the Veterans Health Administration relating to preventive health services.

(3)In order to encourage the effective provision of preventive health services by Veterans Health Administration personnel—

(A)ensure the dissemination to such personnel of any appropriate information on such services that is derived from research carried out by the Administration; and

(B)acquire and ensure the dissemination to such personnel of any appropriate information on research and clinical practices relating to such services that are carried out by researchers, clinicians, and educators who are not affiliated with the Administration.

(4)Facilitate the optimal use of the unique resources of the Department for cooperative research into health outcomes by initiating recommendations, and responding to requests of the Under Secretary for Health and the Director of the Medical and Prosthetic Research Service, for such research into preventive health services.

(5)Provide advisory services to personnel of Department health-care facilities with respect to the planning or furnishing of preventive health services by such personnel.

(d)There is authorized to be appropriated $1,500,000 to the Medical Care General and Special Fund of the Department of Veterans Affairs for each fiscal year for the purpose of permitting the National Center for Preventive Health to carry out research, clinical, educational, and administrative activities under this section. Such activities shall be considered to be part of the operation of health-care facilities of the Department without regard to the location at which such activities are carried out.

(e)In this section, the term “preventive health services” has the meaning given such term in section 1701(9) of this title.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

1994—Subsecs. (a)(1), (3), (c)(4). Pub. L. 103–446 substituted “Under Secretary for Health” for “Chief Medical Director”.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Selection of Facility at Which Center To Be Established Pub. L. 102–585, title V, § 511(c), Nov. 4, 1992, 106 Stat. 4956, as amended by Pub. L. 103–446, title XII, § 1202(e)(2), Nov. 2, 1994, 108 Stat. 4689, provided that: “In order to establish the National Center for Preventive Health pursuant to section 7318 of title 38, United States Code, as added by subsection (a), the Under Secretary for Health of the Department of Veterans Affairs shall solicit proposals from Department health care facilities to establish the center. The Under Secretary for Health shall establish such center at the facility or facilities which the Under Secretary for Health determines, on the basis of a review and analysis of such proposals, would most effectively carry out the purposes set forth in subsection (b) of such section.”

§7318 National Center for Preventive Health