By Patricia Kime
Dr. David Shulkin, the Obama administration’s nominee for undersecretary of health at Veterans Affairs, told lawmakers Tuesday he would work to create a VA medical system that would provide veterans superior care while attracting top talent to its ranks.
Shulkin, president of the 687-bed Morristown Medical Center and an internist who has served as chief medical officer or CEO of major medical facilities since 1991, said the VA’s failings in the past year – appointment wait times, bloated construction costs, lack of accountability and more – and its fledgling transformation efforts have created a ripe environment for “dramatic change.”
“The VA needs change. The VA needs more doctors, more nurses and greater efficiency from its current systems,” Shulkin said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
In what was largely an amicable hearing, senators nonetheless quizzed Shulkin on several current VA black marks, including the $1 billion construction overruns at the VA hospital in Denver, veterans sickened by Agent Orange years after serving in Vietnam and the VA Choice program, which doesn’t 
allow veterans to use the system if they live within 40 miles of a VA health facility, even if the facility doesn’t offer the services they need.
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