Improving Care For Veterans

Guidehouse Partner and Health segment leader Alicia Harkness sat down with Authority Magazine to discuss her professional background, experiences, and how her team works with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve the Veteran healthcare experience.

Through several programs Guidehouse supports, Harkness has led her team to help VA improve access to care, standardize care processes, and prevent Veteran suicides. For example, Guidehouse was an early partner to VA in helping them use data to assess individuals at most risk of suicide. Guidehouse’s (in)Sight Health Catalyst IT platform identifies potentially imminent cases where Veterans need immediate suicide intervention support using publicly available information from digital platforms like social media.

Continuing this work, Guidehouse was recently awarded a prime role on the Accelerating VA Innovation and Learning (AVAIL) contract to help VA evolve its rich history of innovation and breakthroughs. Harkness also discusses how Guidehouse is helping to assess and build strategies that are working with VA to transition from sick care to a whole healthcare system for the care of the Veteran, Veteran self-healing, self-care, and self-empowerment.