Veterans News Bureau

Washington, D.C. – House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) announced that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve seven measures this week that would improve benefits and services to veterans provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

• H.R. 4810 – End Veteran Homelessness Act of 2010 (Filner)

This bill increases funding to successful programs for homeless veterans, requires each VA medical center that provides supporting housing services to provide housing counselors, requires housing counselors to conduct landlord research, strengthens permanent housing programs, and pays special interest to the needs of homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children.  This bill includes provisions from H.R. 2504 (Teague); H.R. 2559, as amended (Hare); H.R. 2735, as amended (Rodriguez); and H.R. 3906 (Teague).

• H.R. 1879 – National Guard Employment Protection Act of 2009 (Coffman)
• H.J.Res. 80 – Honoring the Blinded Veterans Association on its 65th anniversary (Halvorson)
• H.R. 3976 – Helping Heroes Keep Their Homes Act of 2009 (Perriello)
• H.R. 4667 – Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2010 (Perriello)
• H.R. 4592 – Energy Jobs for Veterans Act (Teague)
• H.R. 4360 – Major Charles R. Soltes, Jr., O.D. Department of Veterans Affairs Blind Rehabilitation Center (Campbell)

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Via Nextgov:

The Veterans Affairs Department’s inspector general has launched a criminal investigation into a physician assistant’s alleged downloading of veterans’ clinical data at its Atlanta medical center, sources have told Nextgov.

The assistant allegedly recorded two sets of patient data on to a personal laptop for research purposes. One set included three years’ worth of patient data and another held 18 years of medical information, according to a source familiar with the incident and who asked not to identified.

Roger Baker, VA’s chief information officer, commented on an item about the incident that was posted Monday evening on a Nextgov blog that the physician assistant’s laptop was never connected to the VA network and any data she recorded on her laptop was “hand entered.”

But the source told Nextgov the VA inspector general is investigating whether the assistant used two thumb drives to transfer the data to the laptop.

The department has not disclosed the number of patients involved in the incident, what kind of personal data was copied, or whether it plans to notify the veterans whose records were downloaded.

Continue reading at Nextgov

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Washington, DC—Today, Paralyzed Veterans of America National President Gene A. Crayton praised Congressional leaders for making Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare funding an advance appropriation, but urged that much more needs to be done for our nation’s veterans with disabilities.

“VA in the last two years has received record levels of funding. You have also given VA new responsibilities and created new programs. Now it is important to ensure that these resources are used wisely and where they are most needed,” Crayton told lawmakers. “Paralyzed Veterans of America has been, and will continue to be, an advocate for garnering necessary resources and benefits for veterans. We have a responsibility — as you do — to be stewards of the system. We must be able to say there are enough nurses at the bedside and that waiting times for referrals are acceptable — the resources must provide tangible results.”

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