Changing Lives, Saving Lives


VHA Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) is the catalyst for enabling the discovery and spread of mission-driven health care innovation to advance care delivery and service that exceeds expectations, restores hope, and builds trust within the Veteran community.

As part of the VHA Office of Discovery, Education and Affiliate Networks (DEAN), VHA IE leverages the collective power of innovation champions from across VA, academia, non-profit and industry to operationalize innovation in the nation’s largest integrated health care system

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Establishing a Foundation for Innovation

VHA IE delivers four critical elements needed to create a foundation for operationalizing innovation in a health care setting

Workforce Capacity to Actualize Innovation:
Investing in VHA employees to give them the tools and skillsets needed to bring innovative ideas to fruition


Resilient Organizational Infrastructure:
Institutionalizing innovation through integrated, systematic, repeatable pathways for change


Innovation-Nurturing Culture:
Shifting the mindset to envision innovation as everyone’s responsibility to improve service delivery and create a better new normal


Strategic External Collaborations:
Innovation cannot be realized in isolation and requires novel, cross-industry collaborations that surface novel ideas and help catalyze a shift in the status-quo


VHA IE delivers four critical cornerstones needed to create a foundation

Delivering Innovation

VHA IE delivers innovative solutions today through four core portfolios

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Facilitates a culture of innovation through a network of 33 VA Medical Centers with embedded Innovation Specialists who are focused on empowering frontline VHA employees and their ideas and building the workforce of the future

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Identifies, tests, and diffuses innovative, Promising Practices across VHA through a repeatable process for scaling innovation

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Aims to foster collaboration between both internal and external organizations and select, local VA Medical Centers to address VHA’s most pressing health care challenges.