The organization of health services research in the Veterans Administration

The VA is developing health services research expertise within its health care system. This development and management effort is focused in the Health Services Research and Development Service in the VA Central Office in Washington. The VA development of health services research includes four major programs. Two programs, the Health Services Intramural and Contract Research Programs, provide funding for individual research projects. These programs are analogous in purpose, structure, and administration to the long-established VA biomedical research programs. The third program is the VA-University Health Service Research Affiliation Program. This program consists of about a dozen VA hospital-university affiliations for health services research and is coordinated with the Health Research. Te fourth program is a doctoral and postdoctoral health services training program. By means of these four programs and related efforts, the VA intends to provide knowledge useful for improving teh delivery of health services in the VA health care system.