Providing Veterans with Better Access to Care through Innovative Solutions

Cognosante’s work in the Veterans space is commonly known, but how are we specifically providing meaningful, innovative solutions that help Veterans and Veterans Affairs alike? 

We sat down with Cognosante Program Manager Jocelyn Greenidge to learn more about how we are providing Veterans with better access to care via our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Disparate systems

“The VA” comprises multiple services like the Veterans Benefits Administration, Veterans Health Administration, and the National Cemetery Administration. The various legacy systems that support each of these services work independently, so when even the most trivial update happens in one place (take Veteran personal addresses, for example), the change is only reflected in the originating system – creating data disparity that leads to inefficiency, and ultimately, delays in care. The VA needed an interoperable system that would promote and preserve data integrity, streamline information sharing, and better-position support staff to answer Veterans’ questions via customer support channels.

That’s where we come in.

Our approach

Cognosante provides development, operations, and maintenance support for the VA’s CRM application. Leveraging Microsoft CRM Dynamics, we help the VA build Veteran profiles that are easily accessible by various systems, providers, and even call center agents—enabling the VA to provide quality service to Veterans and their families. We developed Vet360, a plug-in service to the CRM Dynamics platform for the 360-degree view of Veterans. The holistic view of records and information helps break down silos within the VA and prevents Veterans from having to provide duplicative information across programs, providers, and call center agents. Everything about a Veteran is accessible via one secure location, increasing transparency and Veteran dependency on the VA for their healthcare needs.

Our CRM project provides the following benefits to the VA:

• Creates a better customer experience by providing call center agents with a 360-degree view of the Veteran, including referrals and authorizations information.
• Improves efficiencies and speed in answering inquiries from Veterans, beneficiaries, and community providers through call workflow streamlining and standardization.
• Enhances call center and management reporting capabilities through data analytics and data visualizations.

A look to the future

The VA must continue to monitor how Veterans access their health records and how information is shared across programs that support Veterans. Do they prefer to call and ask questions or chat with a bot? Are they accessing the site and applicable portals via web browser, or is there a shift towards mobile apps? Part of Vet360 is to monitor the entire Veteran journey and make applicable changes to healthcare deliverance within the VA—not just update personal contact information. Keeping applications up-to-date and authoring ongoing innovative solutions based on consumer behavior will enable the VA to provide holistic care to our nation’s Veterans. As the healthcare industry shifts towards a concerted focus on the patient experience, Cognosante is continuously monitoring and evaluating CRM program performance to determine opportunities for ongoing improvement and contract growth.