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VA Boston health care top stories.

  • To help welcome families visiting inpatient Veterans at VA Boston Healthcare System, Kathy Johnson and Alisha Long volunteered for a mission to restore the raised bed gardens outside the Fisher House.

    Alisha Long, RN, left, and Kathy Johnson, MSA, with vegetables on the Fisher House patio at the West Roxbury VA campus Aug. 21, 2025.

  • After turning to the VA during a difficult chapter in his life, Air Force Veteran Joe Ramage found healing through music and connection through the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival.

    Air Force Veteran Joe Ramage plays an acoustic guitar on stage at the Veterans Creative Arts Festival in Indianapolis, Ind., May 17, 2025.

  • During National Volunteer Week, VA Boston Healthcare System proudly recognizes the dedication of more than 600 individuals who choose to serve Veterans through volunteerism, their collective contributions totaling more than 45,000 hours this year alone.

    L-R: Charles Freestone, Dr. William Cristo, Marie Casey and Robert Macclary volunteer at the info desk at the West Roxbury VA campus, April 23, 2025.

  • Veterans using MyHealtheVet to manage their health care will notice changes as the platform transitions to VA.gov this year.

    William MacKinlay, a Vietnam Veteran and VHRC volunteer, assists a Veteran with her ID.me login, at the Brockton VHRC, Jan 3, 2025.

  • Rainy weather couldn’t dampen the spirit of giving at VA Boston Healthcare System’s annual turkey drive Nov. 23, 2024, at the Jamaica Plain VA campus in Boston, Mass.

    Volunteers from VA Boston and Lily Transportation at a truck used to store Thanksgiving meals, Nov. 23, 2024. (VA Boston HCS photo by Deirdre Salvas)

  • Launched in June 2023, the public-facing website for VA’s Centralized Interactive Phenomics Resource, known as CIPHER, provides an online knowledge-sharing platform designed to improve the use of electronic health records, or EHRs, for research and clinical care.

    A visualization created using the Knowledge Extraction via Sparse Embedding Regression Network, or KESER, tool available on CIPHER.

  • In a touching ceremony held Nov. 7, 2023, at the West Roxbury VA campus in Massachusetts, the collaborative efforts of VA Boston Healthcare System staff and Comcast’s Veteran Network culminated in the ribbon cutting and dedication of Adam's Corner.

    VA Boston’s Anita Ranade, assistant director and Elizabeth St. Pierre, Fischer House manager, with Barry Bader, vice president for Comcast Business Greater Boston, and members of Comcast’s Veteran Network during a ribbon cutting for Adam’s Corner at the West Roxbury VA Campus, Mass., Nov. 7, 2023.

  • My childhood was unique! I had the opportunity to grow up in Alabama and Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, my biological mother walked away from the family, and her family had to raise us.

    Army Veteran Patricia Odom, the first Black woman recruiter in Massachusetts. “I get all my health care at VA and I’m very happy with the service,” she said. (VA Boston HCS photo by Winfield Danielson)

  • Members of the Danish Consulate in Boston and a delegation of Danish health system directors visited the VA Boston Healthcare System's West Roxbury, Mass., campus March 21, 2023.

    Dr. Yelena Kamenker-Orlov, medical director of the VA Boston’s West Roxbury Primary Care Clinic gives a tour to visiting Danish healthcare representatives as part of a meeting March 21, 2023, to discuss VA health care and similar challenges facing both healthcare systems. (VA Boston HCS photo)

  • The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Legacy have partnered to test and cryopreserve sperm from 1,000 Global War on Terror Veterans across the United States to investigate why Veterans from recent wars are more likely to struggle with infertility than their civilian peers.

    Graphic: “This effort is important to further understanding and tackling a challenge so many … Veterans face,” said Dr. Ryan Vega, chief of VA healthcare innovation. VA and Legacy are investigating why recent Veterans are more likely to experience infertility.