Health Care

None of the four VA psychiatric hospitals GAO visited are effectively collecting and using quality assurance data on a consistent basis to identify and resolve quality-of-care problems. As a result, counterproductive or ineffective psychiatric practices may go unnoticed and dangerous medical procedures may continue unchecked. The results of GAO's work are consistent with its findings at other VA hospitals. VA and non-VA hospital systems GAO visited--both psychiatric and acute medical/surgical--differ little in how they identify quality-of-care problems. The quality assurance mechanisms each uses to ensure that quality-of-care standards are met are similar because most use the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations as their primary external review organization. Further, many of the problems found in VA hospitals have also been seen in non-VA hospitals.