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BACKGROUND: In the mid-1990s, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system initiated a systemwide reengineering to, among other things, improve its quality of care. We sought to determine the subsequent change in the quality of health care and to compare the quality with that of the Medicare fee-for-service program.

METHODS: Using data from an ongoing performance-evaluation program in the VA, we evaluated the quality of preventive, acute, and chronic care. We assessed the change in quality-of-care indicators from 1994 (before reengineering) through 2000 and compared the quality of care with that afforded by the Medicare fee-for-service system, using the same indicators of quality.

RESULTS: In fiscal year 2000, throughout the VA system, the percentage of patients receiving appropriate care was 90 percent or greater for 9 of 17 quality-of-care indicators and exceeded 70 percent for 13 of 17 indicators. There were statistically significant improvements in quality from 1994-1995 through 2000 for all nine indicators that were collected in all years. As compared with the Medicare fee-for-service program, the VA performed significantly better on all 11 similar quality indicators for the period from 1997 through 1999. In 2000, the VA outperformed Medicare on 12 of 13 indicators.

CONCLUSIONS: The quality of care in the VA health care system substantially improved after the implementation of a systemwide reengineering and, during the period from 1997 through 2000, was significantly better than that in the Medicare fee-for-service program. These data suggest that the quality-improvement initiatives adopted by the VA in the mid-1990s were effective.

The quality of health care in the United States is variable and too often inadequate. 1-10 The Veterans Health Administration in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been criticized for poor quality of care. 11-14 In 1995, the VA launched a major reengineering of its health care system with aims that included better use of information technology, measurement and reporting of performance, and integration of services and realigned payment policies. 15-19

We sought to determine how the quality of care provided by the VA changed after reengineering and to compare the quality of care with that provided by another government-funded health care program, the Medicare fee-for-service system. We used measures of quality that primarily focus on process, rather than outcomes, to assess the short-term effect of quality-improvement initiatives, since processes can be changed more quickly and typically do not require risk adjustment. 4

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