Increasing the neurosurgical caseload at a military hospital: initial experience with a joint military-Veterans Affairs (VA) sharing agreement.
OBJECTIVE
Neurosurgeons at David Grant Medical Center (DGMC) have had low surgeon case volumes. Meanwhile, veterans have had long waits because of inadequate neurosurgical coverage. DGMC and Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) agreed to share resources to treat an underserved VA patient population. We analyzed number of cases, admissions, relative weighted product (RWP), and outpatient visits before and after this unique military-VA agreement.


METHODS
Number of operations, hospital admissions, RWP, and outpatient visits (January 2004-November 2007) were noted before or after October 2006. To normalize data, metric (e.g, number of cases) totals were divided by number of months neurosurgeons were available.


RESULTS
Before the agreement, two neurosurgeons performed 210 operations over 52 months (4.0 cases/month). After the agreement, two neurosurgeons performed 177 cases over 26 months (6.8 cases/month). This corresponded to a 2.2-, 2.2-, and 2.0-fold increase in hospital admissions, RWP, and outpatient visits, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The sharing agreement resulted in 1.7-fold increase in operative cases. This military-VA venture provides military neurosurgeons with more surgical cases and provides neurosurgical care to a previously underserved patient population.
Ragel
Brian T
BT
Department of Neurosurgery, David Grant Medical Center, 101 Bodin Drive, Travis Air Force Base, CA 94535, USA.
Taggard
Derek A
DA
Klimo
Paul
P
Liu
Jeannette M
JM
Robison
Sandy
S
Sholes
Anne H
AH