Honoring Service and
Ensuring Care for North
Carolina’s Veterans,
Families, and Caregivers

The NCIOM Task Force on Veterans' Health Report

North Carolina is home to approximately 615,000 Veterans, and an increasing share of Veterans’ health care is provided in community-based settings. The NCIOM Task Force on Veterans’ Health convened to explore how the state can strengthen access to, experience of, and quality of care for Veterans, their families, and caregivers. Drawing on the experiences of Veterans and those who serve them, as well as input from health system leaders, advocates, government officials, and other experts, the task force developed a series of recommendations focused on connecting Veterans and families to resources, improving access to community-based care, preparing the health care workforce to serve Veterans, and sustaining attention to Veterans’ health and well-being.

Download and read the full task force report, "Honoring Service and Ensuring Care for North Carolina's Veterans, Families, and Caregivers."

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Key Points in the Report

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Connecting Veterans, Families, and Caregivers to the Support They Need

A coordinated statewide effort can help bridge the gaps Veterans, families, and caregivers can face in finding, accessing, and sustaining the services and supports available to them. This should include:

  • Increased funding for the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, Department of Administration, and Department of Health and Human Services for specific purposes outlined in Strategy 1.1.
  • Community-level attention and action to improve Veteran and family well-being and connection to resources outlined in Strategies 1.2, 1.3, and 3.2.
Strategy 1.1
Strategy 1.2
Strategy 1.3
Strategy 3.2

Ensuring Access to Community-Based Health Care for North Carolina's Veterans

Less than half of Veterans are enrolled in the VA Health Care System. There are structural and geographic barriers that can stand between North Carolina's Veterans and access to health care services.

  • Veteran Service Officers and health care professionals can be a key point of contact for information about available services and opportunities to meet health and well-being needs. See Strategies 1.1, 2.2, 4.1, 4.3, 6.2, and 7.1.
  • Health care provider availability – both geographic and within payer networks – is an important factor in Veteran access to health care services. See Strategies 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.
Strategy 1.1
Strategy 2.2
Strategy 4.1
Strategy 4.2
Strategy 4.3
Strategy 5.1
Strategy 5.2
Strategy 5.3
Strategy 6.2
Strategy 7.1

Building a Health Care Workforce and System Ready to Serve Veterans

Health care providers in non-VA settings do not typically know when they are caring for Veterans or their families and often do not understand the variety of military-connected health conditions that could affect these patients.

  • Increasing the number of Veterans in the health care workforce could increase Veteran cultural awareness in the health care sector. See Strategy 6.1.
  • Health care providers can improve their ability to care for Veterans by:
    • Participating in trainings on Veteran culture and military-connected health conditions. See Strategies 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
    • Asking all patients if they have served in the military or have a close family member who has. See Strategies 7.1 and 7.2.
Strategy 6.2
Strategy 6.3
Strategy 6.4
Strategy 6.5
Strategy 7.1
Strategy 7.2

 

Recommendations and Material By Topic

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Veteran connection to services and support

 

Veteran family and caregiver connection to services and support

  • Strategy 2.1: Create a family transition navigator program
  • Strategy 2.2: Improve Veteran caregiver access to information and resources related to available benefits and services
  • Strategy 2.3: Increase research into Veteran caregiver needs
  • Strategy 3.1: Enhance the capacity of schools to identify and meet the needs of the children of Veterans
  • Strategy 3.2: Develop Veteran child peer buddy program

 

Access to health care

  • Strategy 4.1: Host an annual Veteran health information summit
  • Strategy 4.2: Increase Veteran access to health services, particularly in rural areas
  • Strategy 4.3: Assist justice-involved Veterans in accessing available health-related services
  • Strategy 5.1: Analyze the network of community-based providers available to Veterans
  • Strategy 5.2: Improve the capacity of smaller health care practices to serve Veterans
  • Strategy 5.3: Engage the Rural Health Transformation grant to improve access to care for Veterans

 

Health care provider knowledge about military-connected conditions

  • Strategy 6.1: Increase the number of Veterans in the health care workforce
  • Strategy 6.2: Educate community-based health care providers about the unique mental and physical health needs of Veterans and the social factors that can affect their health
  • Strategy 6.3: Create and maintain a database of Veteran-ready health care professionals
  • Strategy 6.4: Incentivize health care providers to increase their knowledge of the unique mental and physical health needs of Veterans
  • Strategy 6.5: Engage health care professional students in learning about the unique mental and physical health needs of Veterans

 

Identifying Veterans, family, and caregivers to improve health care

  • Strategy 7.1: Ask patients about their military connections
  • Strategy 7.2: Establish Veteran care improvement mechanisms within hospitals and health systems
  • Strategy 7.3: Improve community-based provider access to Veteran health information

 

Activating energy and attention

  • Strategy 8.1: Generate attention to Veterans’ health
  • Strategy 8.2: Identify and sustain a lead organization to facilitate ongoing action

 

Recommendations and Material By Stakeholder Group
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