Facility Overview and Status | Facility Accomplishments | Ongoing Initiatives 

Durham VA Medical Center is a 271 bed Complexity Level 1A tertiary care referral, teaching and research facility located on an 18 acre site in a mid-sized urban center near downtown, and is adjacent to Duke University Medical Center. The campus consists of a 151 bed acute care hospital and a 120 bed Community Living Center facility. A free standing Outpatient Dialysis Unit was opened in June 2011 in Raleigh NC. In addition, several primary care and mental health clinics and some administrative offices are located in leased space about two miles from the medical center (Hillandale Clinic) and the medical center has a large off-site lease housing its Human Resources, Fiscal, and Health Services Research departments. The Durham VA Medical Center supports Veterans Outreach Centers in Raleigh, NC and Greenville, NC both clinically and administratively.

Special Programs

• Open Heart Surgery Center
• Mental Illness Research & Clinical Center (MIRECC)
• Geriatric Research, Education, & Clinical Center (GRECC)
• Medical Research
• Dialysis Pilot Program

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Facility Accomplishments (FY11 & FY 12)

Realized a 5 percent growth in new patients.

Successful construction to expand capacity and services: 

• MRI 
• Hospice 
• ENT 
• Primary Care 
• Mental Health 
• Outpatient Dialysis 
• Compensation and Pension

Improved Interfacility transfer and fee process to reduce fee costs by 30% compared to FY10 and increase transfer rates between VA facilities

Expanded Surguical Capacity from an average of 330 cases per month to 470 cases per month, resulting in reduced fee costs.

Enrolled approximately 3,000 Veterans and participated in rural outreach events which engaged almost 1,300 Veterans

Distributed 225 of 265 HUD-VASH vouchers, housing 187 Veterans to date, this year.

Research FY11 expenditures exceeded $32 million with 494 research projects in various areas including deployment medicine, exposure (combat and environmental), chronic disease, personalized medicine, women’s health, rural health, and homelessness

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Ongoing Initiatives 

Homeless Veterans Program

• Veterans Justice Outreach Program (VJO)
• Homeless Stand Downs 
• National Call Center for Homeless Veterans (more than 200 responses from the call center, a 103% increase over last year).

VA Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program 

• Volunteers of America’s Maple Court: 24 beds 
• Healing with CAARE: 9 beds 
• TROSA: 25 beds 
• The Healing Place of Wake County: 24 beds 
• Program inspections were completed in March 2011. 
• Construction on TROSA’s new dorm with 15 beds for homeless Veterans is underway with a target completion date of May 2012.

Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) 
Residential Housing for those Veterans in 26 county catchment area who do not qualify for the VA Per Diem Program or the HUD VASH Program. No contract was awarded after two agencies withdrew and one failed to pass life safety code inspection.

OEF/OIF Program
There are 4,434 Veterans that are active in care during FY11 with 300 using case management services. Of the 8,825 total uniques since 2002, 88% are male and 12% female.  To date this year, there are 4046 unique Veterans active in care with 290 enrolled in active case management services.

Women’s Health
Established in 1994, the Durham VAMC opened one of the first eight Comprehensive Women’s Health Care Clinics in the nation. Women’s primary care, gynecology care, breast care, and military sexual trauma treatment are available and co-located in the clinic.

In FY11, more than 4,500 unique women Veterans received care at the Durham VAMC. This represents a 20% increase over the last 3 years. Women unique Veterans is estimated to reach 6,000 within Durham’s catchment area by 2013. Women specific improvements made at the Durham VAMC include privacy curtains in exam rooms, changing tables, sanitary product dispensers, private bathrooms available to all women in inpatient settings and locks on restrooms for safety.  Durham VAMC has an interdisciplinary team to provide outreach to women and work closely with Veteran Service Officers, military installations and others.

Rural Health
The Durham Rural Health team has attended 102 outreach events, assisted 1,689 Veterans, and enrolled 762 Veterans into the VA health care system in FY11.

Compensation and Pension (C&P) Exam Program
Explosive growth in FY10 (over 400% increase) and a considerable FY11 increase of 17%have been addressed and evaluation requests (more than 5,000 in FY11) continue to process in less than 30 days. four C&P teams have completed more than 1700 exams in FY12 so far.

Dialysis Pilot
Durham is one of four sites nationally to participate in a dialysis pilot to enable identification of an optimal approach for delivery of dialysis services.  The dialysis unit opened June 13, 2011 and provides outpatient dialysis services up to 48 Veterans within a 30-minute drive time from the facility.

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