Non-institutional Care Discovery Review

Non-institutional Care Discovery Review – Department of Veterans’ Affairs

The Department of Veteran Affairs’ (DVA) Non-institutional Care (NIC) funding arrangements are intended for healthcare services and products that are provided outside of a medical institution. These are principally classified as allied health services and products. DVA funds a range of NIC activities under this classification, which enables DVA clients to access clinically required services from a range of allied health providers, including chiropractors, dietitians, diabetes educators, exercise physiologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, optometrists, orthoptists, osteopaths, social workers and speech pathologists.

The DVA engaged HMA to complete a discovery review of Non-Institutional Care (NIC) arrangements that focused primarily on how existing administration, governance and financial arrangements support the internal administration of NIC within DVA to gain further information and insights to inform better program governance. The findings helped DVA determine if existing financial and governance arrangements were fit-for-purpose and also outlined how future evaluation of the outcomes of NIC funded services could be supported. Key tasks included:

• development of a program logic and review framework
• discovery process including
  • process mapping NIC internal administration and governance activities, to understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks, including the high-level view of people, processes and systems involved
  • driver tree analysis of business area and broader DVA links and impacts on NIC internal program management performance
  • data collection processes and development of data request
• qualitative analysis including desktop research, and stakeholder engagement
• quantitative analysis including analysis of existing data (NIC program data) and new data: e.g. case study of real-time informal sample audits and system extract analysis
• development of learnings and recommendations for inclusion in the final report.

The project commenced in June 2023 and was completed in July 2023.