Last year, the Department of Veterans Affairs began its journey to become an enterprise-wide High Reliability Organization (HRO) through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Pioneered in industries like aviation and nuclear power, HROs experience fewer accidents despite being high-risk environments where small errors can produce catastrophic results.

“VA has been a leader in patient safety for years,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, in this VA blog post. “Adopting high reliability principles more formally represents the next step for delivering the best health care to Veterans. Our culture is changing VHA’s HRO journey officially begins and pursuing HRO principles nationwide is our pledge to empower staff and keep Veterans the safest they can be on our watch.”

To bring this vision to life in 2020, the VHA just awarded a contract to Cognosante to conduct facilitated assessments of VA Medical Centers, and develop and execute customized implementation plans to facilitate the establishment of HRO principles throughout.

“We are proud to support the VHA – the largest integrated healthcare system in the country – in its mission to provide Veterans with critical healthcare services in the most safe and reliable environments possible,” says James Gordon, President of Cognosante, in this press release.

Cognosante has partnered with several prominent organizations: Safe and Reliable Healthcare, the Institute for Safe Medication Practice, and Intermountain Healthcare, to support the effort.

This contract win reinforces Cognosante’s current efforts to help the VA enhance its mission success through innovation. In October 2019, the company announced a new task order for the ongoing implementation of the VA’s Health Share Referral Manager (HSRM), an enterprise-wide system used by community care staff to generate referrals and authorizations for Veterans receiving care in the community.

To learn more about Cognosante, please click here.

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