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Hampton Veterans' Hospital no longer rated 'at-risk'

The Department of Veterans Affairs has bumped the 432-bed hospital and medical facility up from one to a two out of a possible five-star rating.

HAMPTON, Va. (WVEC) — In recent years, the news coming out of the Hampton Veteran Affairs Medical Center hasn't always been good. In fact, at one point, it had the longest, slowest patient wait times in the country.

But now, this week, the Hampton Veteran Affairs Medical Center received some modest good news.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has bumped the 432-bed hospital and medical facility up from one to a two out of a possible five-star rating.

No longer is it a one-star "at-risk" facility, an inglorious distinction it had held since the fourth quarter of 2017.

"To demonstrate some improvement in these measures, on these outcomes, is very exciting for us," said J. Ronald Johnson, the Hampton V.A. Director. "The staff are very pleased with what they've done, and all the effort they've put in is starting to pay dividends."

Over the last year, the 153-year-old Hampton V.A. has increased the percentage of veterans who are able to get an appointment within 30 days of their preferred date by over 21 percent.

In Fiscal Year '18, on average, it took 7.9 days for a new patient to get a Primary Care appointment and only 4.3 days for an existing patient.

Johnson said he hopes, for the sake of the 53,000 vets who use this facility, that Hampton eventually becomes the highest-rated V.A. center in Virginia.

"We're going to do what it takes to meet their needs and so we want patients to know that," he said. "We want them to understand we're changing our culture, changing the way we interact with them, ultimately, to improve the experience they have when they come here."

Hampton plans to add more than 25,000 square feet of new primary and specialty care clinics, and in 2019, plans to expand the Virginia Beach and Chesapeake community-based outpatient clinics.

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