U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
Skip to main content

Last updated

Duty to Assist Veterans with Exposures to Hazardous Materials

Share Print

Our mission is to educate and connect Veterans with a presumptive condition associated with exposures to hazardous materials during military service. This practice will not only bring in new Veterans to the VHA, but will also connect existing Veterans to additional benefits. Our goal is to bridge the gap between the VBA and the VHA to better serve our nation's heroes.

This innovation is emerging and worth watching as it is being assessed in early implementations. See more emerging innovations.

Adoptions:

1 successful

Awards and Recognition:

Diffusion of Excellence Promising Practice

Contact Team

Overview

Problem

During community outreach events, outreach coordinators recognized Veterans were not aware of their entitlement to service connected benefits for presumptive conditions associated with Agent Orange and contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. In addition, established Veteran patients were not aware of the importance for adding new diagnoses to existing service co ... See more

Solution

A joint collaborative effort between Outreach and Oncology was created to educate and connect Veterans with presumptive conditions associated with Agent Orange and Camp Lejeune with healthcare and benefits. At community outreach events, outreach coordinators educate Veterans with presumptive conditions of their eligibility to VHA oncologic care and potential ... See more

Results

Since project initiation, the Cancer Registry lists 1122 Veterans newly diagnosed with cancer at the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System. Of those, 744 have been diagnosed with cancers associated with Agent Orange or Camp Lejeune water contamination exposures. 472 Veterans were identified as potentially meeting initial eligibility criteria based on their se ... See more

Metrics

  • # of Veterans educated on the presumptive conditions and connected to healthcare and benefits

Diffusion tracker

Does not include Clinical Resource Hubs (CRH)

Statuses

There are no in-progress adoptions for this innovation.

There are no unsuccessful adoptions for this innovation.

Implementation

Timeline

  • Week 1
    Identification of project team members, reviewing the cancer registry and extracting those diagnosed with presumptive conditions. Also compiling a list of local VSC's contact information to include in mailer
  • Week 2
    Recruiting informatics and analytics to scrub list to identify Veterans who served during Vietnam Era or stationed at Camp Lejeune. Disseminate information to key providers/departments
  • Week 3
    Send mailers and make calls to Veterans
  • Week 4
    Responding to Veterans phone calls/emails and directing them to the appropriate personnel to assist with benefits application
  • Month 6
    Reviewing data to evaluate project success

Departments

  • Social work
  • Cancer care
  • Hematology/Oncology
  • Eligibility
  • Whole health
  • Benefits
  • Claims

Core Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • Oncology Coordinator required for 20 hours/week for duration of project
  • Outreach coordinator required for 20 hours/week for duration of project
  • Informatics/Analytics analyst for 1 hour/month for duration of project
  • Access to Veteran Service Commissions and Veteran Service Organizations
PROCESSES
  • The most efficient part of this project is essentially we use either data that is already tracked or easily trackable in collaboration with our Information and Analytics team. Implementing the practice within another facility would be seamless.
TOOLS
  • Cancer Registry
  • Microsoft Office

Contact

Comment

Comments and replies are disabled for retired innovations and non-VA users.

Email

Email with questions about this innovation.

About

Origin story

Outreach coordinators, Stephen Wilson and Will Berry, at the Cleveland VA Medical Center, recognized many Veterans at outreach events were not aware of their potential entitlement to benefits and healthcare related to presumptive conditions associated with Agent Orange and contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. The coordinators reached out to the cancer access ... Outreach coordinators, Stephen Wilson and Will Berry, at the Cleveland VA Medical Center, recognized many Veterans at outreach events were not aware of their potential entitlement to benefits and healthcare related to presumptive conditions associated with Agent Orange and contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. The coordinators reached out to the cancer access coordinator, Ashley Snyder, and a joint collaborative effort was established to identify and reach out to Veterans recently diagnosed with cancers on the presumptive condition lists.

Original team

Ashley Snyder

Cancer Access Coordinator

Will Berry

Outreach Coordinator, Public Affairs