Defense officials could act as consultants and even provide oversight to solve Veterans Affairs hospital construction woes, suggested the senator who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee's military construction and veterans affairs panel.
And the Defense Department would be happy to help, said a Defense Health Agency official who testified before the panel Wednesday.
"We may have to look at this subcommittee possibly mandating that mission to you to untangle VA from the Denver problem," said Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., the panel chairman, who noted that DoD has a "very different philosophy and corporate culture in building hospitals."
"This subcommittee is really wrestling with the incredible overrun in the Denver VA hospital," Kirk said.
VA's construction woes made headlines in December after the contractor stopped work on the planned Denver VA hospital because of cost overruns and payment problems.
The hospital originally was scheduled to open in early 2014. The initial budget for the facility was about $600 million, but VA officials now estimate it will cost well over $1 billion. The Government Accountability Office said the Denver project is one of four major VA construction projects with cost overruns in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The average delay to complete those facilities is 35 months.
When Kirk asked if the Defense Health Agency would be willing to act as consultants for VA hospital construction, Joseph Marshall, director of DHA's business support directorate, replied: "We'd be happy to help in any way possible on that," although he acknowledged that his agency is not fully familiar with the particular challenges faced by VA in that area.
DHA's approach to construction is "cradle-to-grave," Marshall said, noting that the agency works closely with the services in deciding how to structure future medical military construction.
"We take a very serious and hard look at our facilities on an ongoing basis, so that when they require replacement we're aware of that and we have a planning horizon for those projects coming up."
DHA then does a detailed analysis of the market, considering DoD's needs. With leadership fully engaged, he said, "We prioritize these projects because we know there's never enough money to build all the things that we would like."
Agency officials become "heavy partners" with their construction agents, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Naval Facilities Engineering Command.
"We work carefully and closely with them as we structure these projects so that we don't have missteps or misalignments which, as we all know, can occur in construction. Then we follow the project carefully through execution, watching the change orders, managing carefully. ... We take seriously our responsibility from the Congress to manage to the budget totals and manage to the schedule."
Kirk said his understanding is that the Denver problem resulted from construction changes sought by VA medical staff.
"You certainly can't build hospitals without input from clinicians," Marshall said. "You need that input. We find you structure that [input] early on, but then you have to structure any subsequent changes in the process so that you keep control over cost and schedule."
DoD's fiscal 2016 budget request includes $673 million for seven projects to upgrade military treatment facilities. Those projects are:
- $239 million for the seventh and last increment of the project to replace the Fort Bliss, Texas, hospital.
- $124 million for a behavioral health/dental clinic addition at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
- $122 million to replace a medical/dental clinic at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
- $85 million for the fifth increment of the project to replace the Rhine Ordnance Barracks hospital, Germany.
- $62 million for the fourth phase of the ambulatory care center at Joint Base San Antonio.
- $34 million for the medical/dental clinic addition at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.
- $7 million for the replacement of the satellite pharmacy at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Staff writer Leo Shane III contributed to this report.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
