NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Veterans with advanced kidney disease often have a tough time getting coordinated care when they are seeing both VA doctors and outside providers, a new study suggests.
An analysis of data from 1,000 veterans with advanced kidney disease reveals the lack of care coordination has a host of negative effects, including patients' difficulty navigating the referral process, VA doctors spending extra time trying to coordinate care with outside systems, and problems getting records and information from the outside systems, according to the report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
"Overall, the veterans need to remain at the center of their care and the VA system is doing as much as possible to get them the services they need, but it clearly takes more than the VA to do that because of difficulties integrating VA care and other community services," said Dr. Kameron Matthews, currently chief health officer at Cityblock in Brooklyn, New York, who worked on the study when she was at the Veterans Health Administration.
"A lot of this is because of the integration piece and poor communication between care teams inside and outside the VA," Dr. Matthews told Reuters Health by phone. "Records are not shared.
