The Department of Veterans Affairs on Friday announced the opening of its newest health clinic — a facility inside Blanchfield Army Community Hospital at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which could serve up to 50,000 veterans in that state and Tennessee.
The facility is the second co-located with a Defense Department hospital, a partnership the VA said could expand its footprint by 13 more facilities at military bases in the U.S.
Fort Campbell and Clarksville, Tennessee, have the largest and most rapidly expanding veteran population in the region, with more than 21,000 former service members currently enrolled in VA health care and an additional 29,100 who are eligible, according to the VA.
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“The median age of our VA hospitals is nearly 60 years, and so while we are working to modernize them, we are also doing things simultaneously like these partnerships to make sure we are supporting veterans with the right facilities at the right place at the right time in the right part of the country,” Al Montoya, the VA deputy assistant under secretary for health for operations, said during a press call with reporters Thursday.
The VA and DoD have more than 176 sharing agreements in place at facilities and jointly operate the Capt. James Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois. The latest round of partnerships began in October at…
