West Texas VA Health Care System
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About Us The George H. O'Brien, Jr. VA Medcial Center in Big Spring, Texas, provides a wide range of patient care services, with state-of-the-art technology as well as education. Comprehensive outpatient health care is provided in areas of medicine, mental health, physical, occupational and speech therapies, prosthetics, audiology, laboratory/pathology, radiology, women’s health, OEF/OIF/OND, telehealth, anticoagulation clinics, social work, ophthalmology, cardiopulmonary, pharmacy, and dentistry. A sanctioned Home Based Primary Care Program is in place with a census of approximately 100 patients. Inpatient care is provided in medicine and extended care, with referrals to other VISN 18 facilities and community services. Staffed with 565 employees, the facility serves counties in West Texas and New Mexico, with a Veteran population of approximately 57,000. The WTVAHCS is part of the VA Southwest Health Care Network, VISN 18. WTVAHCS is classified as a complexity level 3 facility, consisting of 20 operating beds and operates under the Veterans Rural Access Hospital model. The bed composition is 2 in Intermediate Care and 18 in Medicine. Extended geriatric care is provided in a 40-bed Community Living Center (CLC). A temporary 12-bed domiciliary program was transitioned into a newly constructed 40-bed domiciliary that opened in June 2011. The WTVAHCS operates an Urgent Care clinic for walk-in patients during regular duty hours and has an after-hours 24/7 Nurse Telephone Triage line for all of VISN 18. VA staffed Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) are located in Abilene, Texas; San Angelo, Texas; Odessa, Texas; and Hobbs, New Mexico. A VA Outreach Clinic was activated in August 2010 and is located in Fort Stockton, Texas. An Outreach Clinic in Stamford, Texas, is operated one day a week to provide accessible primary care to the Veterans in this rural area. The service area includes 33 counties (32 counties in Texas and one in eastern New Mexico). The nearest CBOC to the parent facility in Big Spring is the Odessa clinic located approximately 66 miles west; the furthest clinic is Ft. Stockton, Texas, about 147 miles to the southwest of Big Spring. Access to tertiary care facilities is complicated by distance; Albuquerque, New Mexico is the primary referral center in VISN 18 for the WTVAHCS, approximately 430 miles from the Big Spring facility. In VISN 17, the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas is 300 miles to the east and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System in San Antonio is 300 miles to the southeast.
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Other VISN 18 Web Sites -
Albuquerque | Amarillo | Big Spring | El Paso | Phoenix | Prescott | Tucson | VISN 18
