Untangling the Veterans Choice Program
Federal Agency: Department of Veteran’s Affairs
Role: Stakeholder and Contributor
THE CHALLENGE:
The Veterans Choice Program was stood up under a presidential order to increase veteran access to healthcare services, including extending providers outside of the VA healthcare system. Well intentioned, the program had a very fast deadline, which constrained implementors to:
Sending out and filling an RFP for healthcare provider partners
Superficially connecting healthcare systems between partners and the VA
Deprioritizing veteran and provider experiences, resulting in confusion on both how to use Choice, and how to implement it in local facilities
THE SOLUTION
The Veterans Experience Office was tasked with making improvements to this complex healthcare program. Working with an external design and engineering vendor:
We conducted expert interviews resulting in a collaborative mapping of the service blueprint behind delivering the Choice Program, illustrating the complexity of handoffs as well as blockages and slowdowns in the system
We conducted field research, interviewing both veterans and healthcare providers, and having them map their personal experiences and frustrations using the Choice program.
Resulting insights led to concepting potential solutions to common pain points, which we then shared out to our original participants for feedback and perceived usefulness
We prioritized the products that would solve for veteran pain points while remaining feasible to build and launch