Date of Conferral

8-7-2024

Date of Award

8-7-2024

Degree

Doctor of Healthcare Administration (D.H.A.)

School

Management

Advisor

Miriam Ross

Abstract

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States providing care to veterans and eligible family members with a growing population of female veterans. This has led to the need to maintain adequate physician staffing for the care of this unique population. The purpose of this integrative review was to identify strategies for maintaining women’s health providers to support the growing population of female veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma and require specialized care in the women’s health clinic setting. This integrative review provided an analysis of empirical and nonempirical literature within the past 5 years for best practices to recruit and retain physicians for women’s health care. The Baldrige excellence framework was used as the framework for providing standards on quality in healthcare. Four themes that were consistent throughout the analysis included improving job satisfaction, development of job flexibility, women’s health competency training, and developing growth opportunities. The 10 subthemes in this review included analysis of workload and streamlined workflows with a patient-provider ratio, enhancing workplace connections, developing community connections, employee engagement, strengthening sense of empowerment, opportunity for telework and remote work, specialized training programs for women’s health, workshops/national meetings/pilot programs, professional development, and strengthening organizational leadership. Recommendations for future research may focus on the health experiences of female veterans, leading to more specialized training of physicians in women’s health, and positive social change at the VHA.

Download

Share

 
COinS