Locations
Project HERO is currently available to Veterans in four Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs): 8, 16, 20 and 23.
- VISN 8: VA Sunshine Healthcare Network
Southern Georgia and most of Florida. Does not include Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. - VISN 16: South Central VA Health Care Network
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and portions of Alabama, Northwest Florida, Missouri and Texas. - VISN 20: Northwest Network
Oregon, Washington State, most of Idaho and one county each in California and Montana. Does not include Alaska. - VISN 23: VA Midwest Healthcare Network
Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and portions of Western Illinois, Northern Kansas, Missouri, Western Wisconsin and Eastern Wyoming.
The VISNs selected for the pilot project are among those which had the highest expenditures for community-based care, particularly relative to the number of enrollees in the VISN, in FY05. The VISNs are some of the largest VA networks, and represented 25% of total enrollment and 30% of annual out-of-network expenditures. VA used these selection criteria to ensure that Project HERO Demonstration (pilot) results will be representative of the larger VA population, and to facilitate VA's ability to measure the pilot's success.
