SOUTH JORDAN — In an effort to be closer to the growing Utah veteran population, Salt Lake Veterans Affairs and University of Utah Health officials have announced they are expanding their partnership to move the current Veterans Affairs Clinic in West Valley City to a new South Jordan facility anticipated to open next year.
“Our huge focus right now is getting care to patients where they need it,” said Ismael “Milo” Quiroz, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facility planner, who anticipates the veteran population to grow in South Jordan. “We found that moving this clinic to South Jordan is going to increase the ease of use.”
The anticipated 38,000-square-foot South Jordan VA Clinic will be located adjacent to University of Utah Health’s South Jordan Health Center, 5126 W. Daybreak Parkway. Quiroz said it’s also convenient to have the facility located near the south end of the Utah Transit Authority’s TRAX Red Line in Daybreak. The existing facility is at 2750 S. 5600 West in West Valley City.
According to VA public affairs specialist Jeremy Laird, 150,000 veterans live in Utah and 70,000 are enrolled in the VA Salt Lake City healthcare system, which encompasses most of Utah, parts of Idaho and Nevada.
The new clinic will provide primary and mental health care, as well as audiology, which Quiroz calls the “foundational services” of a VA clinic.
Quiroz noted that the project is “still very much in the works,” and the contract “is not 100 percent finalized,” though he expects them to be finalized soon.
The speciality care services are still going to be provided at the VA's main facility, he said, unless patients are eligible for care in the community through the VA Mission Act of 2018, which is replacing the 2014 Choice Act, expected to roll out June 6.
The Mission Act, signed by President Donald Trump last year, will allow eligible patients to seek health care outside of the VA system if wait times are too long or if the facility is too far away from a patient.
According to Quiroz, basic thresholds state that if a patient lives more than half an hour from a VA primary care or mental health service, or wait times surpass 20 days, then eligible patients can choose a provider closer to them and when they need it.
For specialty care, eligible patients can seek other providers if they live further than an hour from the facility, and wait times at the facility don't surpass 28 days. Due to the proximity of the South Jordan Health Center, eligible patients might have the choice to walk across the street to access them, according to him.
"That's going to change how we significantly operate here, but you know it does take a community to care for our patients. VA is looking to the community to help our nation's heroes,” he said.
Quiroz said a great number of the facility's specialty care providers are also U. staff.
Currently the west Salt Lake City VA clinic has 5,500 patients enrolled.
The clinic’s design will increase the number of patients seen to an additional 2,500-4,000, Quiroz said, and the number of exam rooms will increase. The number of primary care teams will increase from nine to 11.
Ed Clark, U. associate vice president for Clinical Affairs and president of the university’s Utah Medical Group, said the medical side of veterans administrations are struggling nationwide, but he anticipates that the Mission Act will alleviate the problems.
Clark calls the partnership a “multidimensional benefit” to the VA, veterans and the university’s teaching programs.
Clark said discussion between the two organizations began a little over a year ago.
“They knew that they had to replace that facility and they started looking for logical places to be,” he said.
He said U. medical students will receive a significant portion of their internal medical experience at the VA, which include both internal medicine and surgery rotations.
"It's really a very important place for preparing our residents, who are already physicians who are doing their next phase of their training,” Clark said.
The partnership between the university and the Salt Lake VA dates back to 1946 during the conclusion of World War II, he wrote in a blog featured on the U. Health website.
"As clinicians … we have to understand the environment and the factors veterans experience during their active duty service, and that has to become woven into the way we approach their health care needs and deliver health care needs,” he said.
Clark said his generation of veterans — those who served in the Vietnam era — are fading.
“We have a whole new wave of veterans who served in the wars over the last 20 years who will need different types of care,” he said.
Clark calls the Vietnam War a “war of penetrating injuries,” while more recent wars have veterans who suffer from more concussive injuries with “greater brain and mind consequences.”
"I hope that veterans and their families will celebrate the closeness of the care and will take advantage of it,” Clark said.
Quiroz anticipates that veterans will be excited about the new location.
"This is going to move quickly, and we want it to move quickly because we have veterans who need care and the services that we provide will be really focused on meeting veterans needs,” Clark said. “Veterans needs are a bit different than the rest of the civilian population."
Quiroz said the VA plans to expand other community clinics. Clinics located in Idaho Falls and Pocatello have already been expanded, he said, and clinics located in Orem, Ogden, St. George, Price, and Elko, Nevada, are next.
The groundbreaking is set to occur this year, according to Laird.