Order shifts control of Minnesota vets homes

(AP) - Supervision of Minnesota's five veterans homes will shift from an appointed board to a top official within the state Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency that was stripped of the same oversight authority 20 years ago.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed an executive order Monday that abolishes the current Veterans Homes Board, which has struggled to rid the Minneapolis home of persistent patient care problems.

Between 2005 and 2007, regulators handed down 66 corrective orders and $42,000 in fines for care lapses there.

Besides Minneapolis, the state-run veterans homes are in Fergus Falls, Hastings, Luverne and Silver Bay. They operated on a combined annual budget of $70 million and currently serve about 775 of Minnesota's 410,000 veterans.

"Making an organizational change in and of itself is not necessarily going to correct any problems."

The homes will now be controlled by the state agency under the direct watch of a new deputy commissioner.

Gilbert Acevedo, who recently was hired as the old board's executive director, will instead take the administration position beginning in January. A new council will be created to advise him.

The leadership conversion was among several recommendations forwarded by a veterans care commission that met from May until November. They issued their 112-page report on Monday.

Members also suggested adjusting compensation levels to attract and retain key staff, hiring clinical directors with defined roles at each site and strengthening bonds between the facilities and the Department of Health.

Down the road, the commission recommended expanding the mission of the homes to better meet the needs of today's returning war veterans, who might prefer to use the services on an outpatient basis rather than being institutionalized.

The commission's chairman, Dale Thompson, said it could be years before some of the suggestions are put into action. But the early backing of major veterans organizations make him optimistic.

"At some point, some reports become doorstops," said Thompson, president and chief executive officer of the Benedictine Health Systems. "We're convinced that this will not be the case particularly because of the coming together of these constituencies."

Under his order, Pawlenty will appoint a nine-member advisory board. It will be comprised of at least seven people with strong credentials in health care delivery, long-term care and veterans services.

One member must also be a licensed clinician and a majority must be members of a chartered veterans organization.

But the most crucial decisions will be made by the new deputy commissioner of veteran health care.

Rep. Erin Murphy, who was involved in the commission as an ex-officio member, said there was a strong desire to establish "a chain of command and accountability that comes back to the governor's office."

"We saw over time that the volunteer vets home board did not have a link back," said Murphy, DFL-St. Paul. "They had a link back on paper but it wasn't an authentic link."

Still, Sen. Linda Berglin, who has held numerous hearings on veterans home woes, reacted skeptically to the immediate switch in oversight.

Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, thumbed through a stack of newspaper articles from 1987, when widespread reports of substandard care caused then-Gov. Rudy Perpich to revoke the Department of Veterans Affairs' authority over homes.

Difficulties then and now go well beyond an organizational chart, she said.

"Making an organizational change in it of itself is not necessarily going to correct any problems," she said. "We need continued vigilance, accountability and leadership."

Berglin acknowledged there have been recent positive strides, including moves to create individual care plans for all home residents and efforts to retrain staff.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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