Veterans employment: Identifying lessons learned from Rapid Retraining Program could benefit future efforts
Abstract: The Department of Veterans Affairs provided help for veterans who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program offered a housing stipend and 12 months of tuition and fees for veterans to retrain for high-demand occupations. More than 13,000 veterans used the program to enroll in training. VA collected a lot of data from schools and veterans on program benefits and challenges, but doesn't have any plans to use the data to formally evaluate the program. We recommended identifying lessons learned to help VA improve any veteran retraining efforts or other benefits programs where quick implementation is necessary.
Abstract: IMPORTANCE: Veterans with occupational performance (e.g., activities of daily living [ADL]) limitations who are receiving inpatient psychiatric care may benefit from outpatient occupational therapy upon discharge, but access disparities have not been investigated. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether ADL limitations, an indicator of need, are associated with outpatient occupational therapy utilization after inpatient psychiatric hospitalization in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and whether this relationship differs by facility characteristics. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of VHA medical record data. Modified Poisson regression was used to model outpatient occupational therapy utilization (yes or no) as a function of ADL limitations, facility characteristics, and sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Interactions were used to estimate whether the relationship between ADL limitations and outpatient occupational therapy utilization differs across facility characteristics. SETTING: VHA outpatient setting. PARTICIPANTS: Veterans who received VHA inpatient psychiatric care from 2015 to 2020 and lived