High Veterans Affairs turnover prompts outside recruiting
By Wesley Brown
Staff Writer
Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014
The loss of three directors in one month coupled with a shortage of physicians and nurses in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Southeast Network is leading the agency to turn to national recruiting efforts.
The VA is broadcasting public service announcements on Augusta airwaves and in national radio markets to recruit skilled health-care professionals, but the effort is being outstripped by the agency’s high executive turnover rate.
Physician vacancies at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta have decreased from 27 to 23 positions since July, while openings in nursing have dropped from 151 to 77 jobs in the past 3½ months, spokesman Pete Scovill said.
Scovill said the hospital has “identified” its next chief of staff and is running the candidate through the credentialing process, but the recruitment has taken five months and it is unclear whether the new officer will be on board before Director Bob Hamilton leaves Nov. 30.
Hamilton announced his resignation last week, marking the third VA director lost in October in the Southeast. John Goldman in Dublin, Ga., and James Talton in Montgomery, Ala., were removed for substantiated allegations of data manipulation.
“The voluntary change you are seeing is emblematic of the fact that there is a new captain on the ship – VA Secretary Bob McDonald,” said Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. “He is obviously putting together a template for major reform and I think a lot of people are asking themselves ‘Do I want to be a part of this change or is it time for me to do something different?’”
Isakson said the VA and its advisers in the House and Senate are looking for disciplined leaders who are committed to veterans and have experience in the system, but the agency has expressed doubts about whether looking within is the best approach.
In an e-mail last week, VA spokeswoman Gina Jackson said the agency is planning a new ad campaign for health-care recruitment to capitalize on the $3 million in donated airtime its public service announcements generated last year. She said the radio commercials are separate from the ones VA facilities produce regionally, which are already being heard in the Augusta area.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said through his press secretary, Caroline Delleney, that he is pleased progress is being made to provide veterans with the care they have earned after more than two years of concern over the VA hospitals in Augusta and Columbia.
“The congressman is hopeful that a stable staff will be recruited at Charlie Norwood that mirrors the changes made at (Williams Jennings Bryan Dorn VA Medical Center) in Columbia,” Delleney said.
The Columbia VA welcomed new Director Timothy McMurry in July. The hospital has a smaller annual budget, $350 million, and fewer employees, 2,200, but more patients, 74,000, than the $379 million and 2,500 personnel Augusta has to serve 40,000 veterans.
See the article at: http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2014-11-02/high-veterans-affairs-turnover-prompts-outside-recruiting