Strategic Goal: Contribute to the public health, socio-economic well being and history of the Nation. VA will support the public health of the Nation as a whole through medical research, medical education and training, and serve as a resource in the event of a national emergency or natural disaster; VA will support the socio-economic well being of the Nation through education, vocational rehabilitation, and home loan programs; and VA will preserve the memory and sense of patriotism of the Nation by maintaining national cemeteries as national shrines, and hosting patriotic and commemorative ceremonies and events.

Objective: Ensure an appropriate supply of health care providers for veterans and the Nation through sustained partnerships with the medical education community.

Performance Goal: Increase the percentage of residents trained in primary care to 48 percent.

Based on the recommendations of the Residency Realignment Review Committee, VHA is making a shift of 1,000 specialty resident positions; 750 will be filled as primary care positions and 250 positions will be eliminated. The latter is in keeping with the larger national goal of training fewer physicians.

VHA conducts an extensive education and training program to enhance the quality of care provided to veterans within the VA health care system. Education and training efforts are accomplished through coordinated programs and activities in the education of health professions students and residents by means of partnerships with affiliated academic institutions. The presence of health professions trainees improves veterans’ care by fostering an academic milieu, thereby enhancing staff recruitment and retention.

VHA continues to build on its long-standing relationships with the Nation’s academic institutions and intends to take a leadership role in reshaping the education of future health care professionals. Plans call for redirecting educational resources to primary care and reviewing affiliation agreements to assure they match the strategic goals and objectives of VA.

There are no major management challenges that will affect achievement of this performance goal.

The data source for this goal is residency allocation records maintained in the Office of Academic Affiliations. These data are kept by academic and fiscal year. The measure for this goal is the number of residency positions classified in Category I (includes general internal medicine, family practice, geriatric medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, preventive medicine, and occupational medicine) at the end of the fiscal year as compared against all VA-funded residency positions. A national report is prepared annually documenting these changes.

(For additional information on this performance goal, refer to Medical Programs, Volume 2, Chapter 2.)