VA Health Care

Improvements Needed in Nursing Home Planning Gao ID: HRD-90-98 June 12, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) nursing home planning process.

GAO found that: (1) VA based its bed-supply goal on the assumption that the proportion of veterans in all nursing homes that VA would support approximated its historical share; (2) VA used the most current data available on the number of veterans expected to use nursing homes in fiscal year (FY) 2000; (3) VA plans to provide 47,000 nursing home beds by FY 2000, an increase of 14,000 beds over the FY 1988 operating level; (4) VA plans to provide about half of the 14,000 beds in community and state veterans' homes; (5) VA plans to construct about 5,000 new beds, at a cost of $405 million, and convert 2,000 VA hospital beds to nursing home use, at a cost of $105 million; (6) VA might not need to add 7,000 new nursing home beds; (7) the VA planning process lacked guidance to ensure that VA accurately identified available beds used; (8) the potential for converting VA hospital beds to nursing home use increased because of a decrease in the number of VA hospital beds used; and (9) VA could convert hospital beds to nursing home care in less time and at half the cost of new construction.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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