“Journey Beyond Temporary Relief and Excessive CC Costs! How we applied Lean to solve this problem at VA Augusta”

This project focused on reducing inappropriate Community Care consults for Massage Therapy at VA Augusta HCS. Prior to starting this project, it was a free-text consult with no guardrails or requirements, resulting in excessive and inappropriate consults going out to the community. The new structured consult provides guardrails and prompts providers to ask qualifying questions to veterans. After implementation of the new structured consult in March 2024, we saw a significant reduction in CITC Massage Therapy referrals from (11 to 2) per day which has resulted in a cost avoidance of almost 3 million dollars for the facility in FY24.

After attending this Abstract the attendees will be able to develop and implement evidenced-based criteria to their CIH modalities and apply it as a guideline to the way they offer services.

After attending this Abstract the attendees will be able to incorporate Change Management principles early on to ensure success and sustainment to their projects, while mitigating resistance and frustration to impacted parties.

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Author

Rennetta Warren serves as the Senior Process Improvement Specialist at VA Augusta Healthcare System. She joined the SR team in August 2023 and is currently Green Belt Certified. Rennetta is originally from upstate New York, but moved to Salisbury, NC where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Livingstone College. She worked in VISN 6 at the Salisbury VA Healthcare System for 9 years and has held many positions. Her focus is to create awareness of Lean concepts, principles, and methodologies to all staff and empower them to be problem solvers in their own departments.