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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
 
Program Assessment

Program

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Veterans Health Research and Development

This program focuses on understanding and improving medical treatment for conditions that are unique to veterans or are of particular importance to those veterans who receive health care within the system. The program includes preclinical, clinical, health services, and rehabilitation research and development.

Rating

What This Rating Means

PERFORMING
Moderately Effective

In general, a program rated Moderately Effective has set ambitious goals and is well-managed. Moderately Effective programs likely need to improve their efficiency or address other problems in the programs' design or management in order to achieve better results.
  • Research projects focus on health issues unique to veterans, but can also address issues that impact everyone and yield findings used by other entities. For example, Veterans Affairs researchers and colleagues found that an experimental vaccine for shingles reduced the incidence by more than half; the Food and Drug Administration approved it in May 2006, and it is now available for adults age 60+.
  • The program recently developed goals and performance measures that will allow the assessment of program strengths and weaknesses. Further refinement of measures is planned. An example is the program assessment measure by the National Research Advisory Council.
  • The Office of Research and Development must document that researchers have complied with both regulatory requirements and VA policies prior to final approval and initiation of projects. A streamlined process for collecting and analyzing project information will help facilitate this final approval process.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Refining the program's performance measures to directly target specific health care issues encountered by veterans.
  • Developing a medical research infrastructure survey schedule and drafting an initial report to Congress based on survey results.
  • Developing and implementing a new streamlined process for collecting documentation required for review and approval prior to the release of research funds.

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