New regions will enhance service to Veterans
Internal Organizations to Realign Their Existing Structures
Washington – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that it is taking the first steps under the MyVA initiative to realign its many organizational maps into one map with five regions to better serve Veterans.
The new regions under the MyVA alignment will allow VA to begin the process of integrating disparate organizational boundaries into a single regional framework to enhance internal coordination.
“We want every Veteran to have a seamless, integrated, and responsive VA customer service experience every time. This regional alignment is the first step in empowering Veterans to interact with one VA – MyVA,” said Secretary Robert McDonald. “Ultimately, this reform will improve the Veteran experience by enabling Veterans to more easily navigate VA and access their earned care and benefits.”
VA’s new regional design utilizes state boundaries to divide the country into five regions. Each organization within VA will begin work to ensure their structures are aligned within this framework by the end of June 2015.
Veterans are already seeing the impacts of changes made through the MyVA initiative. For example, at the suggestion of VA employees, the Department has made improvements to VA call center operations, to allow call center agents to suspend or resume certain benefit payments at the request of the Veteran, which eliminates additional steps typically required of Veterans. Also at the suggestion of employees, VA is working towards piloting improved signage in certain facilities, to make sure Veterans know where they are going and that directions are easy to follow.
Additional VA efforts are currently underway to define the next steps to transform the Department into one that is more centered on the Veteran.
Background on MyVA
Launched on September 2, 2014, MyVA is an initiative which will reorient VA around Veteran needs and empower employees to assist them in delivering excellent customer service to improve the Veteran experience. It is the largest department-wide transformation in VA’s history and will be a product of ideas and insights shared by Veterans, employees, members of Congress, VSOs, and other stakeholders.
The first phase of MyVA has included creating the task force and building the team to support the mission and an organizational change of this breadth. MyVA is focused on five areas of improvement:
1) Improving the Veteran experience
2) Improving the employee experience so they can better serve Veterans
3) Improving internal support services
4) Establishing a culture of continuous improvement, and
5) Enhancing strategic partnerships.
[ The Regional Map can be see at: http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/docs/myva-5-regions-map.pdf ]
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