About us

About the Birmingham VA Health Care System

The Birmingham VA Health Care System provides you with outstanding healthcare, trains America’s future healthcare providers, and conducts important medical research.

Health care and services

We provide you with health care services at 11 locations in Alabama. Facilities include our Birmingham VA Medical Center and 9 community-based outpatient clinics in Bessemer, Birmingham, Childersburg, Gadsden, Guntersville, Huntsville, Jasper, Shoals,  and Anniston-Oxford. To learn more about the services each location offers, visit the Birmingham VA health services page. 

Our medical center provides Veterans with comprehensive primary and specialty health care in medicine, surgery, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, oncology, dentistry, and geriatrics. We also provide specialty care for Veterans referred from other VA facilities. Our medical center is a recognized leader in palliative care and multiple sclerosis. It’s also 1 of only 7 VA medical centers in the United States that perform kidney transplants, and 1 of 13 that offer a rehabilitation center for Veterans who are blind.

BVAHCS is one of the leading health care systems serving Veterans in the VA Southeast Network. We’re an innovative care center within the Veterans Integrated Service Network 7 (VISN 7), which includes medical centers and clinics in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.

Learn more about VISN 7

Research and development

At the Birmingham VA Health Care System, we conduct research to discover knowledge, develop VA scientists and health care leaders, and create innovations that advance health care for Veterans and the nation. We offer Veterans the opportunity to participate in and benefit from our work. Our goal is to use research to promote better health and health care for all. 

Research at our medical center is conducted by University of Alabama at Birmingham faculty from the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. Grants funded through the VA support those research projects. We’re also an active partner in the Birmingham/Atlanta Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center. The center’s mission is to improve the capability of the VA to provide services that meet the medical, psychological, and social needs of older veterans through research, education and innovative clinical services. 

Our research and development program increases our capacity to deliver advanced medical therapies and treatments to Veterans. 

Visit our Research webpage here: https://www.va.gov/birmingham-health-care/research/ 

Teaching and learning

The Birmingham VA Health Care System is a teaching hospital that provides a full range of services, with state-of-the-art technology as well as education and research. We provide professional training in all major medical and surgical specialties and subspecialties. 

We also offer associated health training in nursing, psychology, audiology, social work, dietetics, and pharmacy.

Our primary affiliation is with the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. We also have partnerships with other leading colleges, universities, and professional schools throughout the United States. 

We’re proud of our partnerships with top institutions and organizations that support the educational mission of the VA.

Fast facts

• The Birmingham VA Health Care System provides primary and specialty health care services to over 71,000 Veterans every year in Alabama and surrounding states. 
• The Birmingham VA Medical Center opened in 1953 in the historic Southside district of the city.
• We practice green environmental standards at BVAHCS to help protect the environment.
• In November 2020, BVAHCS was selected as a clinical-trial site for the single-dose investigational COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. This was the fourth large-scale COVID-19 vaccine trial in the United States.
• In November 2020, BVAHCS was recognized as an Age-Friendly Health System.