WASHINGTON -- A preliminary report by the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs has found deliberate manipulation of official waiting times in its investigation of alleged criminal misconduct by management at a Phoenix VA hospital.
The inspector general's office is looking into allegations about care at the Phoenix VA healthcare facility that "include gross mismanagement of VA resources and criminal misconduct by VA senior hospital leadership, creating systemic patient safety issues and possible wrongful deaths," the , released Wednesday.
"While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility."
Investigators interviewed staff at the Phoenix facility and also examined patients' medical records and other documents.
They found that a "significant number" of workers who schedule appointments at the Phoenix VA facility "are manipulating the waiting times of established patients by using the wrong desired date of care.
"Instead of schedulers using a date based on when the provider wants to see the veteran or when the veteran wants an appointment, the scheduler deviates from [VA's] scheduling policy by going into the system to determine when the next available appointment is and using that as a purported desired date. This results in a false 0-day wait time."
In addition, investigators found 1,400 patients who didn't have primary care appointments and were appropriately placed on the Phoenix facility's electronic wait lists (EWLs); however, they also "identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the EWL. ... These veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix HCS's convoluted scheduling process. As a result, these veterans may never obtain a requested or required clinical appointment."
Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, called the interim report's results "reprehensible to me, to this department, and to veterans."
"I am directing that the Phoenix VA Health Care System (VAHCS) immediately triage each of the 1,700 veterans identified by the OIG [Office of Inspector General] to bring them timely care," Shinseki .
He added that the leadership at the Phoenix VA facility has been placed on administrative leave and that he has "directed an independent site team to assess scheduling and administrative practices at the Phoenix VAHCS. This team began their work in April, and we are already taking action on multiple recommendations from this report."
President Obama met with Shinseki last week about the growing controversy over veterans' healthcare nationwide. While he did not ask Shinseki to step down, he did say in a news conference afterward that "there is going to be accountability" if the report uncovers serious problems.