Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
VA Embracing Transparency, Welcoming Public Scrutiny With Launch Of New Website
USA Today: New VA Chief On Public Scrutiny: Bring It
The Department of Veterans Affairs has a new message on public scrutiny: Bring it on. President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, VA Secretary David Shulkin, is unveiling a new web site that will reveal for the first time exactly how care at every VA hospital and clinic across the country compares with nearby private-sector hospitals and national averages. The site set to go live Wednesday, accesstocare.va.gov, also shows if veterans are satisfied with wait times at each facility and how long they are actually waiting on average. (Slack, 4/12)
In other news —
NPR: Texas Military Burn Center Treats Civilians Too
The burn unit at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas, is hot. Sometimes, it gets up to 102 degrees in there, among the patients. People with severe burns can't regulate their own body temperatures well, so the air has to keep them warm. "We see a lot of gruesome stuff," says physical therapist Melissa Boddington. At the height of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than one thousand wounded service members were flown to the hospital. (Rigby, 4/11)
