Our Mission

When people hear innovation, they often think amazing or groundbreaking new technology. While technology plays an important role in innovation, it is not the centerpiece. Transformative innovation is about breaking the boundaries that confine us, the institutional and operational silos that constrain our ability to collaborate. Transformative innovation is about looking outside ourselves, building communities, and learning together how to approach problems in new ways.

To build these solutions and enable these initiatives, we connect deeply with communities across all sectors of academia, industry, nonprofit, other government agencies and Veteran Service Organizations. We meet with stakeholders in board rooms, virtual meeting rooms, clinics, in Veterans' communities and in their homes. Through this, we seek to better understand the challenges they face, the goals that drive them, and what matters most to them in this changing world. From this, we are developing multiple solutions to better serve these communities as customers, and in turn, to create a more innovative and collaborative VA.

Explore How to Engage your Communities from the Field

How to Establish Collaborative Agreements

READ OUR COLLABORATION PLAYBOOK

How to Engage VSOs in your Community

READ OUR VSO ENGAGEMENT PLAYBOOK

Coming Soon: Data in Collaborative Projects

Hosting a Hack-a-Thon Playbook

READ OUR HACK-A-THON PLAYBOOK

Reimagining Veteran Healthcare
Lifting Veteran Voices

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the landscape for healthcare delivery. Leveraging the rigors of human-centered design, the Reimagining Veteran Healthcare project aims to design novel solutions to address the critical changes in customer and employee needs and expectations and to unearth and expose the opportunities for VHA transformational change brought about by the pandemic

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VA CDCE Innovation Academy
Engaging Collaborators across Industries to Accelerate Innovation

VA Center for Development and Civic Engagement (VA CDCE) and VHA IE established the VA CDCE Innovation Academy through a collaboration with NAF, a national nonprofit bringing together education, business and community leaders to transform the high school experience, to provide opportunities for high school students to design solutions to specific VA challenges. Over 100 students participated in the VA CDCE Innovation Academy, guided by VA CDCE Program Managers, VHA Innovation Specialists, and VA staff members.

VA I-DEA Showcase
Highlighting VA's cultural transformation

The VHA IE team joined the VA I-DEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and access) Sub-Council for the I-DEA Showcase, a series of events which highlight the diversity and powerful experiences of VA employees and Veterans. The VHA IE team, empowered by field-based innovators, engaged the audience in an overview of design thinking, shared stories of Veteran and staff member experiences with extended reality, showcased the VA Diversity and Inclusion Advocate Program out of the Orlando VAMC, and offered opportunities to invest in and scale IDEA focused innovations through programming like Go Fish!, Spark, Seed, Spread, Greenhouse, and Shark Tank. VA employees can view the event recording by clicking below.

Mission Daybreak
VA Launches $20M Innovation Challenge to Reduce Veteran Suicide

Suicide is a serious public health problem that affects communities everywhere. In 2019, more than 45,000 American adults died from suicide — including 6,261 U.S. Veterans. While suicide can affect all Americans, it has a disproportionate impact on the Veteran community. Mission Daybreak, formerly known as the Suicide Prevention Grand Challenge, is a $20 million grand challenge to reduce Veteran suicides. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs calls on innovators to develop suicide prevention solutions that meet the diverse needs of Veterans.

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VSO Engagement
Engaging Collaborators across Industries to Accelerate Innovation

VHA Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning offers a unique innovation and learning infrastructure that covers the lifecycle of grassroots innovation and enables cutting edge healthcare to over 9 million Veterans. This past year, OHIL, Veterans Experience Office, and VSO community have co-developed and implemented an engagement strategy and field guide that offers a unique approach to collaborative innovation in communities across the nation.

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VA Pathfinder
Opening VA's front door for vendors and innovators with solutions to improve Veteran care

Nobody knows where the next groundbreaking innovation is going to come from. However, thanks to VA Pathfinder web-tool, we know where it will be going – to VA and the Veteran community. Within just weeks of its launch, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' new web-based resources and submission portal has received thousands of visitors and dozens of submissions. Each submission represents an innovation, a product, or service designed to provide Veterans with the care they deserve. Innovators can also use the submission form to share their interest in joining the VHA Innovation Community. Visit Pathfinder.va.gov to learn more about how to do business with the VA!

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News and Events

Remote Temperature Monitoring for the Prevention of Diabetic Foot Ulcers is a highly successful partnership program between VHA IE and Podimetrics. Using equipment and technology created by Podimetrics, the program supplies at-risk, diabetic Veterans with SmartMats that use thermal imaging to measure the temperature of a Veteran's foot, analyzing them for diabetic foot ulcers.

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Photo of medical personnel collaborating

The Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) and the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) brought together Veterans with technology and digital health innovators to accelerate VA's role as a leader in advancing patient-centered digital health solutions that improve Veteran care coordination, access, and quality.

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The VA Center for Development and Civic Engagement Innovation Academy works in collaboration with VHA IE and NAF, a national nonprofit. Innovation Academy works with high school students to sponsor problem-solving challenges. The Innovation Academy engages youth in volunteer service and exposes them to the work of their local VA medical center.

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iEX showcases the impact of collaborative partnerships on innovation at VA. It also demonstrates the power of VA employees developing, implementing, and diffusing innovations and promising practices.

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Suzanne Shirley, LCSW

Director, Community Engagement & Fellowship

"Transformative innovation is about breaking the boundaries that confine us, the institutional and operational silos that constrain our ability to collaborate. Transformative innovation is about looking outside ourselves, building communities, and learning together how to approach problems in new ways."

Brynn Cole

Director, Design & Storytelling

Brynn Cole works within the VHA Innovation Ecosystem as a designer, facilitator, and storyteller: she's on a mission to make VA healthcare more human, relevant, and relatable through practicing and facilitating the art of human-centered design. Brynn began her VA career in 2006 at the White River Junction VA in her home state of Vermont, before transferring to San Francisco in 2010. Since moving back to Vermont and joining the VHA Innovation Ecosystem in 2018, Brynn has facilitated human centered design projects and programming with Veterans and VA employees from across the country.