VHA - Diffusion of Excellence

Our Mission

Diffusion of Excellence’s mission is to identify, replicate and scale emerging Promising Practices across VHA’s nationwide health care system. We sponsor the annual VHA Shark Tank Competition and build capacity for diffusion activities through training, education, and tooling delivered to the country’s largest health care workforce.

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Diffusion Playbook

Since 2016, Diffusion of Excellence has been on a journey to develop repeatable, inclusive frameworks that enable practices, developed by VHA frontline employees, to obtain recognition and broader impact. The Diffusion of Excellence Playbook provides a “bread-crumb trail” to how Diffusion fosters identifies, replicates, and scales Promising Practices.

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Our Diffusion Sites

Promising Practices
Empowering Our Workforce to Unlock Emerging Healthcare Practices

In 2016, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Diffusion of Excellence began a journey to develop repeatable, inclusive frameworks that enable Promising Practices developed by our frontline employees to obtain recognition and broader impact. We’ve discovered unique ways to empower our workforce, make their combined efforts more readily understandable to peers and leadership, and unlock broader impact across our health care enterprise for the most promising of emerging practices.

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Colorectal Screening with Mailed FIT
Increasing Screening, Reducing Cancer Risk

Screening is proven to reduce mortality from colorectal cancer (CRC), the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. VHA has initiated a program to mail Fecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) kits for CRC screening directly to our Veterans to use in their homes and mail back for analysis - ultimately increasing colonoscopy access for Veterans with the highest risk for CRC.

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Compassionate Contact Corps
Reducing Loneliness and Improving Well-being

A social prescription program that offers friendly phone and video visits between trained volunteers and Veterans that call their matched Veteran once per week to provide compassionate conversation and companionship.

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Transforming Health and Resiliency through Integration of Values-based Experiences (THRIVE)
Building Resilience, Reducing Burnout

THRIVE engages Veterans and employees to transform healthcare from symptom management to whole health. This program empowers Veterans to improve their quality of life by taking ownership of their health and well-being, while simultaneously reducing burnout amongst staff through reduction of healthcare costs.

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News and Events

The VMET program assists in responding to calls involving local law enforcement interactions with veterans in crisis. This proactive outreach approach, which includes a VA clinician and VA police officer, is a first of its kind VA nationwide program to help reduce the number of veteran suicides.

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Federal News Network's Jory Heckman spoke with Diffusion of Excellence’s Blaine Fitzgerald about the Marketplace’s public launch.

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The Diffusion Marketplace is a searchable site houses 75 innovations for the healthcare community, driving VHA's success as a learning health care system and acting as a digital storefront for innovations.

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Diffusion Academy brings employees with mature practices together from across VHA IE portfolios to train and support them in taking the next step in spreading their work across VHA. This year, Diffusion Academy also supported researchers from the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), providing them with the same training and tools during the three-day intensive collaboration.

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VA method to stop unnecessary medications receives award from the World Hospital Congress.

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Four VA innovators received the Bob Jesse Award at the 2022 VHA Innovation Experience.

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Surgical Pause offers alternative treatments to surgery, increasing survival rates for Veterans.

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Blake Henderson

Diffusion of Excellence Director

“Diffusion of Excellence enables our partnered practices and innovations to sustainably scale across our nationwide health care system to maximize their impact.”

Diffusion of Excellence

Replicating and scaling Promising Practices

Our Mission

Diffusion Marketplace

Discover and collaborate with VA’s innovations across the Nation

VHA Shark Tank Competition

Identifying employee-developed Promising Practices and matching them with interested facilities

National Diffusion Practices

Scaling the highest-impact practices throughout our healthcare system

Emerging Technology Communities

Identifying, evaluating, and implementing emerging technologies to improve Veteran healthcare

Our Diffusion Sites

Blake Henderson

Diffusion of Excellence Director