November 8, 2016 – In honor of our veterans our club received a message this week from Scott Isaacks, the Director of the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center here in Charleston. Isaacks has been with the VA since 1992, serving in various roles across the country including Miami, Florida, and Amarillo, Texas, before becoming coming to Charleston to serve first as Associate Director in 2010 and now as Director beginning in 2014. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and an MBA from the University of Tennessee.
The VA is the second largest federal agency being surpassed only by the Department of Defense. It operates 152 medical centers across the country and is the largest single integrated system in our nation. Charleston’s VA Medical Center is the fifth largest in the United States. Isaacks explained that his agency serves veterans not only at the center, but at six clinics spanning the coast from Myrtle Beach to Savannah.
The number of veterans his facilities serve continues to grow because our state and particularly the coast has become such a popular place for retirees, many of whom are veterans. The VA has a goal to provide quality care and to make that care accessible to all veterans. While we have all heard of difficulties at VA centers across the country, Isaacks believes Charleston’s center has always been able to provide services at a level of proficiency higher than most other centers. According to the model the VA uses to assess its facilities, Charleston is a five-star center in the top ten percent of VA centers nationally. Despite handling over 2,000 calls a day, our local VA center is well below the national average in terms of the time it takes to obtain care. Veterans can expect to receive primary care within days of contacting the center and specialty care generally within weeks.
The VA does not stop at using its internal metrics to evaluate its medical centers. The VA compares its centers to all medical systems in the country, both private and government, and Charleston’s VA ranks in the ninety-second percentile.in that comparison.
Isaacks stated that one of the most prevalent medical issues our veterans face is PTSD. Even many veterans of the Vietnam War are discovering that they are experiencing difficulties from the trauma they experienced fifty years ago. The Charleston VA center has been on the forefront of care for PTSD and has become a model for the use of tele-mental health care. Many veterans live in areas far from the psychiatric and psychological experts they need to see for help with PTSD. Not only are their issues chronic, but when they experience episodes of difficulty they may need immediate access to counseling to avoid injury or harm to themselves and others. With tele-mental health, these veterans can connect with counselling and medical experts via internet or telephone without the need for a long trip to a clinic or medical center.
Because the Charleston VA has developed such a vibrant infrastructure for tele-mental health – more than any other VA medical center in the nation – Isaacks said it will become a hub for provision of these services across the country for the VA. A new building in North Charleston is expected to house this facility which will provide much-needed PTSD care to thousands of veterans across our nation.
The tele-mental health hub is not the only building project for Charleston’s VA medical center. Isaacks mentioned Fisher House as a facility he is excited to see added soon. The VA can pay the cost of housing veterans needing care, but there is no budget for assisting family members accompanying veterans. Fisher House will meet this need, much as the Ronald McDonald House program assists families of children who are hospitalized. The Charleston Fisher House will be located on Wentworth Street and will provide 16 bedrooms for family of veterans. Groundbreaking for this facility is this week.
We all know Vietnam veterans did not receive generally the welcome home they deserved. Isaacks is proud that his VA center is partnering with Patriots Point to host a symposium for such veterans. This symposium will be televised across the nation and will be piped into many schools, allowing those school children to learn first-hand about the sacrifices of these veterans at a difficult time in our nation’s history.
Our Charleston VA center is a mid-sized center according to Isaacks. He has a staff of about 2,500 serving the needs of some 70,000 veterans. About 90 VA medical centers across the country have an affiliation with a medical school and Isaacks is thankful Charleston is one. Many of his medical staff members, particularly those in specialty areas of practice, maintain positions with both the VA and the Medical University of South Carolina.
The VA has approved the building of a new clinic in Myrtle Beach which Isaacks says will double the size of the current facility there. He expects a new off-site clinic in North Charleston to be completed. Primary care and dental care will be moved from the medical center to this new facility which will hopefully make these services more accessible to area veterans than the crowded downtown.
Overall, Isaacks presented a view of the Charleston VA Medical Center already strong, but growing and improving. This positive future is important because as Isaacks stated, our veterans deserve nothing less than the best medical care available.
— Alex Dallis, Keyway Committee