Patient advocates

Care we provide at the Louisville VA Medical Center

Our Patient Advocates work hard to make sure you receive the best possible care and to ensure your voices are heard. They offer help with:

• Advocating for patient, family, and caregiver rights
• Facilitating service recovery by addressing patient concerns with their care team or other service lines within the Louisville VA Healthcare System
• Patient Advocate Rounding within inpatient wards, the emergency room, and our substance abuse program
• Being Designated Points of Contact for Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, & Sexual Abuse
• Tracking concerns to ensure they are addressed in a timely manner
• Reporting compliments and concerns to the Executive Leadership Team for awareness and process improvement

Connect with a Patient Advocate

The Patient Experience Office was established to oversee and assist the health care system in collaborations across VA sub-agencies, VHA program offices, and local health care community providers. The Patient Experience Officer leads, facilitates, and collaborates on patient experiences at the Louisville VA Medical Center to improve efforts and initiatives. 

The Patient Advocate program was specifically designed to manage the complaint and compliment process, including complaint resolution, data capture, and analysis of issues/complaints. They communicate this information to facility leadership to help drive system improvements. Patient Advocates assist front line staff in resolving issues that occur at the point of service and address complaints that were not able to be resolved at the point of service. Patient Advocates work directly with leadership to facilitate resolution to problems beyond the scope of front-line staff. Further, they participate in resolution of system problems by presenting the patient’s perspective of the problem and desired resolution. 

The Louisville VAMC uses a decentralized model for advocacy, where Service Level Advocates (SLAs) are available within each department or clinical area, to resolve concerns at the point-of-care. This model seeks to resolve patient issues at the lowest level possible. Service Level Advocates (SLAs) are employees designated at the service level, or point of service, who assist in resolving issues after first attempts at resolution have been unsuccessful. 

If you or a Veteran you care for have not been able to resolve important issues related to the VA through other means of communication, please contact one of our highly skilled staff members who will be eager to help you in a timely manner. Our patient advocates are located on the first floor of the Robley Rex VA Medical Center Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or call for assistance.