Flagship hospital’s mammography program still shuttered more than a year after controversy
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ flagship hospital is still not delivering mammography services more than a year after government officials shut down the program, according to a report published Wednesday.
House lawmakers had ordered inspections at the Washington DC VA Medical Center back in 2019 amid reports the facility was struggling to notify patients about their imaging findings. The VA Office of the Inspector General just recently released its results, detailing how staff departures created crucial gaps in patient follow-up.
The medical center’s mammography program has remained shuttered since 2019 and officials are unsure when it may reopen, NBC 4 reported March 3, citing anonymous sources. In the meantime, the VA is helping more than 300 District of Columbia-area patients
seek breast imaging services from private providers during each month of the shutdown, the report noted.
House members who ordered the investigation slammed the VA last week, noting they were lucky no one was harmed.
“This is a deeply troubling report,” Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC, said in a joint statement. “These are mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers. Failure to send even one mammogram result notification is one too many. The DC VA Medical Center snatched luck from the jaws of incompetence, and that cannot continue.”
A Veteran’s Affairs representative told NBC that the agency has hired a new breast imaging specialist as the center works toward relaunching its program. The VA has also added extra staffers, equipment and space in preparation for the relaunch.
The recently released VA Office of Inspector General report found that ordering providers were not consistently documenting patient notification of abnormal breast imaging results, as required. At the time of the review, the facility did not have a functioning mammography program due to staff departures, nor had it implemented recommendations from the National Radiology Program Office following a September 2019 site visit. OIG officials issued seven suggested fixes last week relating to documentation and notification processes, action plans, standard operating procedures, and staff training.
You can read the full 32-page report here and the update from NBC 4 below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.