Council members from VA's three administrations provided updates of
emerging or significant issues. As a part of this update, Mr.
Wannemacher provided a comprehensive review of the Department of
Memorial Affairs plans to open several new cemeteries over the course of
the next 4 years, to increase employee training, to develop formal
career paths for employees and to the track headstones in private
cemeteries and abroad. Ms. Miller provided a briefing on VHA's budget,
VA's national rakings and web assessability, outpatient clinic
utilization and future growth and wait times, CARES implementations, and
the Topeka call center. Michael Walcoff followed with a summation of
VBA's increase in workload, decreased staffing levels, claims inventory
and the need for additional funding.

**[Learning Management System]{.underline}**

Joseph Schaefer, Program Manager for VA's LMS, presented an update of
the prototype to the NPC.

Mr. Schaefer explained that VA-LMS is a training management process
which functions as a way to manage online courses, training records,
workforce development, competencies and succession planning,
accessibility to course information, materials and registration, in
addition to learning events such as offsite conferences, independent
studies and instructor lead training. This program groups all of your
acquired knowledge into a singularly accessible data source.

The test sites have been designated within VHA, VBA, NCA and VA's Office
of Cyber and Information Security. The preliminary design review is
nearly completed. Once the configuration of the prototype is
operational, the next phase of the program will be to finalize the MOU's
and, conduct a user acceptance test. The prototype will undergo a 3
month validation and assessment before further deployment.

**[Consolidated Patient Account Center Pilot]{.underline}**

Susan Reed, CPAC Project Manager, VHA Chief Business Office, Al Brese,
Deputy Network Director, VISN 6, Durham, NC and John Roten, President,
AFGE Local, Asheville, NC, gave a briefing on VISN 6 experience with the
Consolidation of Revenue Cycle Activities and their work with the
effected unions.

The presentation to the National Partnership Council on July 28 provided
an overview of the CPAC pilot including the rationale behind the
consolidation efforts, outline of expected outcomes and implementation
schedule. Following the presentation given by Susan Reed, the CPAC
Project Manager, Al Brese, VISN 6 Deputy Director, gave a presentation
prepared jointly with John Roten, the AFGE Local President, on the
consolidation efforts in VISN 6 and the significant impact good labor
management relations have on these types of initiatives involving
consolidation of work. The following summarizes and provides specific
details of the CPAC Pilot Projects.

The Veterans Health Administration Chief Business Office (CBO) is in the
beginning phases of conducting a demonstration pilot to validate the
viability and effectiveness of creating an industry modeled Consolidated
Patient Account Center (CPAC) and associated organizational structure
within VA. As envisioned, the pilot will address all operational areas
contributing to the establishment and management of patient accounts and
related billing and collection processes. The CPAC Pilot will occur in
two phases. Phase 1 will take place in VISN 6, a consolidated VISN;
Phase II will take place in VISN 11, a non-consolidated VISN.

During and following the presentations, the NPC membership asked
questions about the impact of the consolidation on employees, the types
and grades of positions that be impacted, the number of CPACs in the
future. The Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and
Management, Laura Miller, emphasized the importance of the consolidation
efforts to improving the revenue process.

**[LMR Training]{.underline}**

Dianne Gorsek, Project Manager, Employee Education System, talked about
the development of an Online Supervisory Training Program. This
supervisory training will be designed to enhance the basic competencies
and skills of new and current supervisors by providing courses that
focus on the "nuts and bolts" of the skills required to be a successful
supervisor. These courses are designed to provide consistency in
learning across VHA. Several kinds of modules will be administered
within the VISN's. The curriculum will be developed with the use of new
training materials using subject matter experts from across the VA to
include union representatives. The training will be made available
online and accessed through Blackboard.com.

**[ORM Update]{.underline}**

James Jones, DAS, Office of Resolution Management, gave a presentation
entitled, "Its About the Environment". This ORM Update was given on the
methods used in the Organizational Climate Assessment Program (OCAP),
for processing complaints and intake work. OCAP is a proactive approach
used to capture the employee's perceptions of their working environment
and provide feedback to executives and managers by conducting focus
groups where recommendations can be made and sent back to the facility
to help them develop plans and intake actions to improve the overall
working environment to labor's and managements benefit. This program
involves training initiatives on two fronts; internal which focuses on
ORM Employee Development and external which provides the Administrations
the skills and tools needed to address prevention and early resolution.
The average time for processing investigations between FY01-FY04 ranges
from 253 to 232 days. Although the numbers have progressively decreased
over the years, the goal is to set an EEOC standard of 180 days for
processing. One of the methods used to accomplish this goal is the use
of written affidavits versus transcripts during the investigation. A new
system of electronic case management is being developed for a more
efficient method of electronic recording of case management, assurance
of data accuracy and reporting.

**[e-Payroll Project -- Migration to DFAS]{.underline}**

 

Under the Federal e-Gov initiative for e-Payroll, Defense Finance and
Accounting Service (DFAS) has been mandated to become the sole payroll
provider for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  The e-Payroll
Project will encompass the VA tasks required to manage the migration of
VA payroll services to DFAS.

 

VA and DFAS recently completed functional workshops during which
information was exchanged between both agencies on requirements and
expectations.  The next step is to analyze this information, assess the
impact on VA systems, culture, policies and procedures then identify
differences and potential resolutions that will be negotiated with DFAS
later after vetting this information within VA.  During the planning
phase, emphasis has been on the identification of those options that
have the least impact on all employees, minimizing the amount of change
to HR processes, reducing the amount of change for payroll staff, which
would require the least amount of training, ensuring accurate and timely
salary payments and reducing the impact of risk on the project's
success.  As a result of this approach, VA will continue to use Employee
Express.  Decision on a Time and Attendance system and areas where
differences have been identified are still under analysis and
consideration.

**[DyADS]{.underline}**

Presented by Timothy J. Viskocil, Commissioner, Federal Mediation &
Conciliation Service(FMCS). Dynamic Adaptive Dispute Systems in the
Workplace (DyADS) is a process by which employers and unions can develop
systems to manage conflicts within the work place, which may fall
outside of the collective bargaining agreements. FMCS works with the
conflicting parties to create an effective program. This program is not
a way to elude or replace ADR or the grievance-arbitration procedure of
collective bargaining agreements. During the pilot process of this
project, participating organizations will gain free access to the full
spectrum of FMCS resources. He encouraged the council to explore its
uses.

**[VHA Employee Survey]{.underline}**

Dan Kowalski, Veterans Health Affairs, reported a positive response rate
of over 70% in the results and findings of the VHA All Employee Survey.
The survey is used as an instrument to measure organizational cultures
within the VA. The questions in the survey focus on the five major
organizational issues; overall facility character, the role of managers,
sources of cohesion among coworkers, general strategic emphasis and
basis for rewards. The relationship of organizational culture to other
important factors such as employee and patient satisfaction,
demonstrates a statistically significant positive relationship between
group culture and patient satisfaction among inpatients: the higher the
dose of group/teamwork culture, the higher the patient satisfaction.
Some of the members of the research team have recently promoted the
results of the study in a prominent peer-reviewed journal (Meterko, Mohr
& Young, Medical Care, 42(5), May 2004, 492-498).

**[Looking Ahead]{.underline}**

Before closing the meeting the council made a number of decisions;

The council agreed to sign an MOU with VERDICT in partnering over
current and future research that involved bargaining unit employees.

Mr. Wannemacher of NCA and Mr. Cowles of LMR, agreed to work with Mr.
Boucher of UAN, on finalizing council recommendations to the Secretary
on Emergency Preparedness.

It was agreed that someone from Public Affairs should attend the next
NPC meeting to discuss ways in which VA employees could better share
VA's successes with the public.

It was also agreed that the NPC would spend some time during the next
meeting working on the NPC's strategic plan.