VA clinics to work in tandem

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs has scoped out locations around the valley and is moving ahead to establish four new health care centers as complements to the medical complex being built in North Las Vegas.

With attention focused on the $600 million hospital, nursing home and outpatient center going up at Pecos Road and the Las Vegas Beltway, other features of a veterans health care master plan for Southern Nevada have been somewhat overlooked.

With the North Las Vegas medical center as an anchor, the VA is reconfiguring how care will be provided to 54,000 enrolled patients in the region, a client population that is expanding rapidly as service members retire to the area or return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

About 216,000 veterans live in Clark County.

The VA reported to Congress in January that the new clinics would improve patient access and give the agency flexibility in Nevada to adapt to growing workloads.

A "primary care center" will be in each quadrant of the metropolitan area. There, retired service members would:

• Receive basic care such as checkups.

• Have prescriptions filled or lab work done.

• Get chest X-rays.

Mental health services will be offered at each location.

"Primary care particularly needs to be close to where people live. The veterans really like having the clinics near their homes," said Steve Stern, chief asset manager for the VA Southern Nevada Health Care System.

"As opposed to everyone going to one giant center, what we have done is to move primary care out to where it is convenient for the veterans," Stern said.

Meanwhile, an outpatient medical center that will be attached to the North Las Vegas hospital would host specialists like those in oncology, cardiology, rehabilitation and prosthetics.

Most veterans like the setup, said Bill Anton, Disabled American Veterans adjutant for the Department of Nevada.

"Actually it is a good idea," Anton said. "They can have something local, and when you go to the main hospital they can do the heavy work."

The North Las Vegas complex will house a 90-bed hospital and a 120-bed nursing home that are scheduled to be operational by mid-2011, VA officials say. Benefits offices also will be consolidated there.

Medical specialists now are spread among 11 clinics around the valley. Stern said that over time, most of those facilities would be phased out but some might remain.

The primary care centers are expected to be operating by mid-2009, Stern said.

The VA has identified areas in four parts of the valley where it will soon seek builders to construct the 30,000-square-foot clinics on 6-8 acres of land. The properties would be leased long term to the government.

VA officials have explained the plan to veterans groups. On Wednesday, Stern briefed an advisory board assembled by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who sits on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

"The VA strategy is to attempt to provide more primary care where the veterans are actually living as opposed to having them drive to a central location," Berkley said. "I love it. The more convenient I can make medical services for our veterans, the happier they will be and the happier I will be."

The VA will continue to provide psychiatric care and outreach to homeless veterans at designated facilities but it is not clear whether they will remain at their present locations or moved elsewhere, Stern said.

The Community Based Outreach Center for Homeless Veterans is on West Owens Avenue. The Arville House Psychiatric Day Treatment Center is on South Arville Street.

Elsewhere, the Pahrump Primary Care Clinic will be retained and probably expanded, Stern said.

Additionally, Southern Nevada VA officials are preparing a proposal for agency leaders in Washington to authorize a clinic in Laughlin, a course recommended by Nevada's U.S. senators and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.

"Laughlin is in desperate need," Porter said. "It is long overdue seeing these new facilities and the VA's new program as it is being unfurled. Throughout the process, the aim was to look at ways to provide first-step clinics and facilities around the valley."

Stephens Washington Bureau writer Sara Spivey contributed to this report. Contact bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.