Nurse Staffing Within the Veterans Health Administration: Recruitment, Retention and Qualification Issues

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others have highlighted the need for an adequate and qualified nurse workforce to provide quality and timely care to veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) faces challenges such as increased competition for skilled clinicians in hard-to-fill occupations such as nurses. As GAO has previously reported, recruitment and retention is particularly difficult for nurses with advanced professional skills, knowledge, and experience, which is critical given veterans' needs for more complex specialized services. This book reviews the initiatives VHA has to recruit and retain its nurse workforce and the extent to which VHA oversees its nurse recruitment and retention initiatives. Furthermore, the book reviews the extent to which Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers (VAMC) have implemented VHA's nurse staffing methodology, and VHA oversees VAMCs' implementation and ongoing administration of the methodology.