Employee Innovation Competitions
VA has the largest civilian workforce in the Federal Government, employing talented staff all across the country. With years of experience in the field providing care and services to Veterans, these employees represent a massive resource for finding new solutions and new approaches to VA's challenges.
Since 2009, VA has held four Employee Innovation Competitions, producing nearly 15,000 ideas with the participation of over 100,000 employees. VAi2 has worked closely with leaders from VHA and VBA to fund and implement 72 of the best ideas. These projects typically take place as a pilot project or field test in a single VA Medical Center or Regional Office.
Employee Innovation Competitions provide VA with a mechanism to tap the ingenuity and innovative spirit of the workforce while providing those innovators with funding and support to make their ideas a reality. Successful innovations will be transitioned into regular practice and deployed across the country.
Process
The process has varied somewhat between competitions, but the general approach has remained the same. Using an online crowdsourcing platform, employees submit their own ideas and vote on those submitted by their colleagues. The most popular ideas rise to the top of the field and are reviewed by VA leadership and subject matter experts to determine their suitability for implementation. The VAi2 Executive Selection Board, chaired by the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs, approves a final set of ideas to be piloted or field-tested.
Topics
The two largest administrations within VA are the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA). Since 2009, VAi2 has held two VHA employee competitions and two VBA employee competitions.
The 2011 VHA competition sought ideas that would have the following impacts on the health care that VA provides to Veterans:
- Enhance the partnership between the patient and his or her health care team to make sure the patient receives whole-person care.
- Enhance care within medical and surgical specialties.
- Enhance care within the mental health specialty.
- Reduce or prevent Veteran homelessness.
- Increase Veterans' access to health care.
- Improve overall workflow and performance monitoring.
- Improve internal administrative processes necessary to support the business of Veterans' health care.
The 2011 VBA competition sought to make dramatic improvements in Veterans' experience with VA's Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment service (VR&E), from eligibility to employment. Employees were encouraged to create innovative solutions that would:
- Dramatically increase the annual number of Veterans who enter suitable employment.
- Decrease and/or streamline VR&E employees' administrative work necessary to perform effective case management while increasing quality of services.
- Reduce the amount of time from the date of application to the entitlement decision.
- Streamline Veterans' entry into rehabilitation programs.
- Increase the rate at which Veterans stay with the VR&E program through entitlement determination.
- Drive up the number of Veterans entitled for services who enter a rehabilitation plan.
- Contribute ideas for improving the business process reengineering initiative.
