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In responding to Katrina only a few weeks earlier, our employees were models of courage and fortitude. Staff in the Gulf region and Washington quickly established contact. Working together, they assessed the damage, developed evacuation plans for patients, and coordinated strategies to support the federal response. They identified 1,600 volunteers; located helicopters, planes, and trucks; and deployed 12 mobile clinics to Louisiana and Mississippi. Staff served patients at New Orleans without regard to their own circumstances; 40 percent of employees lost homes and many lost communication with their own families.
Among the many successes we saw in the aftermath of Katrina was the rapid transfer of our computerized patient records from New Orleans to Houston. While records are available (and backed up nationally), New Orleans lost external telecommunications and continued to function as a hospital for three days. Records of patient care from those days were put on tape and accessible across the country to clinicians caring for evacuated veterans. From veterans in hospital whose therapy was uninterrupted despite everything, to refilling prescriptions of patients who had lost everything, VA's electronic health record was a model for the country.
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Quite simply, many VHA employees performed countless acts of ingenuity, dedication, selflessness and sacrifice. They continued to evacuate and care for patients even though they endured the displacement of their own families and the loss of their own homes. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and subsequently Rita, VHA demonstrated its capacity to achieve its mission of providing safe, effective, efficient and compassionate health care to America's veterans.
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