No way to run hospitals

VA supply shortages threaten veterans’ care

The Veterans Health Administration should be ashamed.

At least two of its hospitals — right here in Oakland and in Aspinwall — are failing in their most basic duty to their patients.

Some supplies are in such short supply that patient safety is being threatened. Staff has had to scramble to find items that range from sterile sponge gauze and bleach, to bedpans and medical gloves, to toothpaste and medication cream.

It’s the outcome of government’s aspiration for more efficient supply management.

Employees of the Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs Healthcare System told the Post- Gazette’s Sean Hamill shortages have been escalating over the past year but have become more critical in recent weeks.

Mr. Hamill reports that the problem began when the primary vendor supplying the Pittsburgh VA and other VA medical centers in the region was switched in December 2016 as part of a national effort to improve the VA’s supply chain management. The big goal: to ensure that supplies on hand do not extend past 30 days. The switch locally was from Cardinal Health, which has a distribution center in the North Hills, to American Medical Depot. AMD’s nearest distribution center is in King of Prussia in Eastern Pennsylvania.

VA spokesman David Cowgill issued a written statement that couldn’t have sounded more bureaucratic and cold- hearted: “Due to product availability, changes or unusually high demand, all health care facilities must overcome stocking challenges from time to time. Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System is no different...” He refused to answer specific questions. But, within a couple days of Mr. Hamill’s inquiry, another top Pittsburgh VA official wrote an email to employees acknowledging the supply shortages “mainly due to delayed delivery by our primary medical supply vendor” and promised the system is “aggressively working to remedy the situation.”

AMD told Mr. Hamill that in- house technology glitches had arisen and that product flow will normalize within two weeks. But the company also acknowledged its contract specifications from the government are problematic, referencing a 2017 performance audit by the U. S. Government Accountability Office that noted structural problems in the new supply management chain system which aims to reduce “excess inventory.”

In other words: No stock on hand for more than 30 days.

The repeated incidence of shortages locally shows that Pittsburgh VA Healthcare is more interested in producing the statistics their D. C. overseers are demanding than in actually caring in the best way possible for its patients.

Pittsburgh VA Healthcare has an obligation to advocate for its patients with the Veterans Health Administration by proclaiming loudly and clearly: The 30- day rule doesn’t work. It cuts supplies so short as to not allow for any glitch in the delivery system. And the Veterans Health Administration should respond with a change to its contract specifications.

One of Mr. Hamill’s sources put it best: “Sometimes it’s better to have things you don’t need right now than to need things you don’t have.”