Illinois
and the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• General:  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) offers a wide variety of programs and services for the nation’s 24.3 million veterans.  In 2006, about 5.3 million people were treated in VA health care facilities, 3.6 million veterans and survivors received VA disability compensation or pensions, nearly 600,000 used GI Bill education benefits and more than 2.4 million owned homes purchased with GI Bill home loan benefits originally valued at $236 billion.  About 97,000 veterans and family members were buried in VA’s national cemeteries and 335,000 headstones and markers were provided for veterans’ graves worldwide.

VA spent more than $2 billion in Illinois in 2006 to offer services and benefits to about 852,000 veterans who live in the state.  That same year, 84,167 veterans and survivors received disability compensation, dependency and indemnity compensation, or pension payments in Illinois.  VA provided 21,542 veterans, reservists or survivors education benefits through the GI Bill; 49,958 owned homes with active VA home loan guarantees originally valued at $1.6 billion.  Illinois veterans held nearly 60,000 VA life insurance policies worth more than $711 million.  In 2006, 3,797 were interred in Illinois’ seven national cemeteries.

• Health Care:  One of the most visible of all VA benefits is health care.  VA has 153 hospitals, 881 ambulatory care and community-based outpatient clinics, 207 Vet Centers, 136 nursing homes, 45 residential rehabilitation treatment programs and 92 comprehensive home care programs.  Due to technology and national and VA health care trends, VA has changed from a hospital-based system to a primarily outpatient-focused system over the past decade.  Veterans will make 55 million outpatient visits to VA health care facilities this year.

In fiscal year 2006, VA medical facilities throughout the state had nearly 25,000 inpatient admissions and 2 million outpatient visits.  VA medical facilities in Illinois include the Danville, Marion, and North Chicago medical centers, the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and the VA Chicago Health Care System, which was formed in 1996 following the integration of the Lakeside and West Side medical centers.  VA Chicago was renamed the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in May 2004 in honor of the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  The Danville medical center and its outpatient clinics were renamed the Illiana VA Health Care System in May 2001.  VA's ambulatory care services in Illinois have grown dramatically in recent years as VA care shifted to clinics and outpatient treatment.

The state's facilities offer a wide range of health care, including primary, extended and specialty care, nuclear medicine, blind rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, cardiovascular surgery, urology, podiatry, home-based primary care, psychiatric and post-traumatic stress disorder treatments, substance abuse programs and numerous programs for the aging veteran.  Additionally, Illinois has 23 outpatient clinics, including large clinics in Rockford and Peoria that provide a full array of primary care for veterans in the communities where they live and work.  VA Illiana Health Care System in Danville is a general medical and surgical facility providing primary and secondary medical and surgical care, acute and long-term psychiatric care, rehabilitation medicine services, extended care, nursing home care and a range of outpatient services.

The North Chicago VA Medical Center (VAMC) and the Great Lakes Naval Hospital have an agreement that allows military beneficiaries to receive care at VA.

In a unique partnership between VA and the Navy, the Great Lakes Naval Hospital shifted inpatient mental health services to the North Chicago VAMC in late 2003.  The VAMC renovated and expanded its surgery and emergency departments and, in June 2006, the naval hospital's inpatient services, including pediatrics, emergency and surgery services, shifted to the VAMC. This is envisioned to be the first joint VA and Navy facility – where VA and Navy personnel will work side-by-side to care for veterans, active duty members and their families.  Also for the first time, pediatric care is provided in a VA health care setting, by Navy pediatricians.

Marion VA Health Care System encompasses three states with the primary medical center and nursing home care unit located in Marion.  Marion VA Medical Center is a teaching hospital, providing a full range of patient care services.  Marion continues to use cutting-edge technology to provide better health care to veterans.  Through the use of tele-medicine and tele-pathology, veterans are treated in different geographic locations by their physicians located at the parent facility.  Additionally, Marion will be opening a new cardiac catheterization lab in March 2007.  Patient satisfaction ratings continue to indicate high satisfaction with the care provided by the Marion VA Health Care System.  Marion continues to grow by nearly 7 percent each year in patients to the system.  To help accommodate the increase, Marion opened a community-based outpatient clinic in Hanson, Ky.

At the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital, two state-of-the-art rehabilitation centers for Blind Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury were opened in May 2005.  These buildings allow Hines to offer veterans top quality treatment, training and care in brand new facilities featuring the most sophisticated and modern equipment.

A new 200-bed tower at Jesse Brown VAMC is under construction through the CARES (Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services) national initiative with activation in late 2007.  The new tower will be connected to the existing JBVAMC facility, where many ancillary support and diagnostic functions will remain.  Most primary care, mental health, and multi-specialty outpatient clinics will continue to operate at the existing Lakeside community-based outpatient clinic site, even though the Lakeside property was sold to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  An advisory committee is looking into plans for a future site and programs to continue a VA clinic in downtown Chicago.

Each of the VA facilities in Illinois has an affiliation with the state's major medical schools, including Northwestern University, Loyola University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Health Science, Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.  Hundreds of doctors, nurses, social workers, and dentists train each year at VA facilities in specialties such as audiology and speech pathology, biomedical engineering, medical technology, pharmacy, physical therapy, psychology, social work and many other areas.

• Post-Conflict Care:  VA has launched special efforts to provide a "seamless transition" for those returning from service in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF).  Each VA medical facility and benefits regional office has a point of contact to coordinate activities locally to help meet the needs of these returning combat service members and veterans.  In addition, VA increased the staffing of benefits counselors at key military hospitals where severely wounded service members from Iraq and Afghanistan are frequently sent.  Once home, recent Iraq and Afghan veterans have ready access to VA health care, which is free of charge for two years following separation for any health problem possibly related to wartime service.  Some 205,000 veterans from the Global War on Terror have sought VA health care since returning stateside, about one-third of the total number of men and women leaving military service.

In Illinois, more than 4,300 active duty service members and veterans of the Global War on Terrorism have sought VA health care.  At the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital, doctors have treated 960 returning veterans; at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, 900; in North Chicago, 314; at the Illiana VA Healthcare System, 625; and at the Marion VA Health Care System, 2,231.  Many veterans from the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan have visited the nine VA counseling centers in Illinois.  These community-based Vet Centers serve as an important resource for veterans who, once home, often seek out fellow veterans for advice or help transitioning back to civilian life.

• Geriatric Care:  Long-term care is a critical issue for America’s veterans.  Approximately 39 percent of living veterans are at least 65 years, compared with 12 percent of the general population.  The challenge to care for these 9.5 million men and women is met through a spectrum of home and community-based programs such as home-based primary care, homemaker and home health aide services, home respite and hospice and adult day care health.  VA also provides nursing home and domiciliary care for veterans who can no longer be safely maintained in non-institutional settings.  Additionally, VA conducts nationwide research on the causes and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and funds 21 geriatric research, education and clinical centers, each focusing on a major geriatric problem.

In Illinois, veterans aged 65 and older received medical care last year through programs that were institutional and non-institutional, hospital-linked and community-based.  In fiscal year 2006, the Great Lakes Health Care System treated 55,000 patients age 65 and older; the Danville facility treated 16,702.  VA facilities provided services such as rehabilitative care, respite care, long-term care and home-based primary care for veterans with acute and multiple chronic health problems, functional disabilities and cognitive impairments.  VA's goal is to provide preventive, therapeutic and rehabilitative care for veterans to enable them to attain their highest degree of self-sufficiency.

In 2006, 47 percent of veterans who used JBVAMC were 65 years or older.  JBVAMC has a Geriatric Evaluation and Management (GEM) unit that was established to care for elderly veterans who are especially sick or frail.  A multidisciplinary team follows GEM patients on both the inpatient wards and in the outpatient clinics to assure continuity of care.  It has been successful in reducing their re-admission rate by two-thirds.  In 1987, JBVAMC, in collaboration with two local agencies, opened the first Alzheimer’s adult day care center in Chicago.

Hines Hospital operates programs in nursing home care, transitional care, hospice care, inpatient geriatric evaluation and management, acute geriatric care, as well as a program for comprehensive rehabilitation of the frail elderly.  Additionally, Hines has a strong research program in geriatrics and a geriatric fellowship program.

North Chicago operates a hospice and palliative care unit.  The hospice-palliative care unit has been on the cutting edge of "end-of-life" care and pain management.  This program hosts workshops covering pain management, end-of-life issues and hospice care.  The medical center's mental health department has gero-psychiatric units that provide care to elderly psychiatric patients with chronic medical and psychiatric conditions.

• Research:  To provide the highest quality of health care to the nation’s veterans, VA sponsors a world-renowned research and development program that addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing medical science today, such as aging, vision loss, women’s health, Gulf War illnesses, diabetes, bioterrorism and hepatitis. VA researchers led the way in developing the cardiac pacemaker, the CT scan, magnetic source imaging and improving artificial limbs.  More recently, injuries sustained by armed forces engaged in current deployments have further increased the long-standing emphasis on VA research on limb loss; prosthetics and tissue replacement; traumatic brain injury; spinal cord injury; and mental health issues including post-traumatic stress disorder.  The quality of the research and relevance to the veteran population remain the determining factors in deciding what studies to fund.

The majority of VA researchers in Illinois are clinical caregivers working in VA health-care facilities on problems directly related to veteran patients.  This makes VA research distinct from most other federal or foundation-sponsored research.  VA is committed to evidence-based medical care.

The consolidated Hines and North Chicago VA research program is one of the largest and most diverse research programs in VA with approximately 492 projects, 146 investigators, an estimated budget of $18.5million (VA and non-VA) and 127,000 square feet of space.  Major study areas include the health services research and development center, the cooperative studies coordinating center, rehabilitation research and development, biomedical research, and a major clinical trials program.  Hines also serves as a site for the Office of Research Compliance and Assurance (ORCA).

The JBVAMC research program includes 428 projects, 144 investigators and an estimated annual budget of $23 million (VA and non-VA).  The JBVAMC research program includes a number of diverse research studies in the areas of rehabilitation, basic and applied medical research and health outcomes research.  Research projects currently underway include studies on prosthetics and orthotics, low vision, kidney disease, oncology, gastroenterology, alcoholism, insulin production in the body, HIV and tuberculosis.

• Disabilities and Pensions:  Not all military service related issues end when people are discharged from active duty.  About 2.7 million veterans receive monthly VA disability compensation for medical conditions related to their service in uniform.  VA pensions go to about 330,000 wartime veterans with limited means.  Family members of about 527,000 veterans qualify for monthly VA payments as the survivors of disabled veterans or pension recipients.

VA's Chicago Regional Office serves veterans and their survivors in Illinois who are seeking VA financial benefits.  In fiscal year 2006, the Chicago Regional Office processed 13,931 disability compensation claims, including 4,790 veterans applying for the first time for disability compensation and 9,141 cases where veterans reopened a claim, usually to seek an increase in their disability rating level for higher payments.  Nearly 1,700 Illinois veterans participated in VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program in 2006.

• Homeless:  Nearly one-quarter of all homeless adults are veterans, and many more veterans who live in poverty are at risk of becoming homeless.  VA is the only federal agency that provides substantial hands-on assistance directly to the homeless.  It has the largest network of homeless assistance programs in the country.  More than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds are available for homeless veterans throughout the country.  VA aggressively reaches out to veterans on the street, conducts clinical assessments, offers needed medical treatment, and provides long-term shelters and job training.  More than $265 million is dedicated to specialized homeless programs to assist homeless veterans, including grants and per diem payments to more than 400 public and non-profit groups.

All of VA's medical facilities in Illinois have homeless assistance programs.  These programs provide crisis intervention, treatment and referrals, residential treatment and housing assistance.  Additionally, health care professionals provide street and shelter outreach on a regular basis.

The Hines hospital was one of the original sites to initiate the health care for homeless veterans (HCHV) program in June 1986.  The HCHV program consists of outreach to streets and shelters to identify veterans who are homeless, link them to VA services and provide case management to them while in community contract placement.

In 1994, the HCHV program at Hines initiated the supported housing program and HUD-supported Section 8 housing program.  In December 1998 it became the liaison for the first per diem program in Chicago.  The HCHV program also participates in various community task forces and councils on homelessness.  This collaboration with the community has resulted in several partnerships that led to a number of funding awards.

The Hines hospital, Jesse Brown VAMC and North Chicago VAMC, in concert with local vet centers and numerous community agencies, have held annual summer and winter stand downs since 1993.  These events provide "one-stop" access to housing, financial assistance, employment advice, medical treatment, substance abuse and mental health treatment and personal essentials for homeless veterans.

Hines has signed an enhanced-use agreement allowing Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago to renovate and establish a transitional living center in Building 14 on the Hines campus.  Enhanced-use initiatives also include Catholic Charities' plans to establish programs for veterans in Buildings 53 and 51.

JBVAMC is working with Catholic Charities of Chicago on a 141-unit homeless transition center and VA clinic on the south side of Chicago.  The homeless transition center is at 80 percent occupancy; the VA outpatient clinic is expected to open in early April.

The JBVAMC has an outreach program to seek and enroll homeless veterans with mental health or substance abuse problems who do not use VA facilities.  Through its Supported Housing Program and Health Care for Homeless Veterans grant and per diem program, JBVAMC has provided much-needed case management to homeless veterans.  In addition, JBVAMC offers these homeless veterans dental care through the Dental Care for the Homeless Program.

Health care professionals from North Chicago have provided hands-on assistance to the homeless since 1987, when North Chicago was selected as one of VA's 10 pilot programs to develop domiciliary-based clinical residential rehabilitation for homeless veterans.  North Chicago also leases space to PADS, Inc., a community organization that provides advocacy and emergency shelter to homeless people.

• Memorial Affairs:  Most men and women who have been in the military are eligible for burial in a national cemetery, as are their dependent children and usually their spouses.  VA manages the country’s network of national cemeteries with more than 2.7 million gravesites at 124 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, as well as in 33 soldier’s lots and monument sites.  In 2006, nearly 97,000 veterans were buried in VA's national cemeteries.  Additionally, VA provided more than 335,000 headstones and markers and 405,000 Presidential Memorial Certificates to the loved ones of deceased veterans.  VA-assisted state veterans cemeteries provided more than 22,000 interments.

VA has seven national cemeteries in Illinois.  In 2006, the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery near Chicago had 2,387 burials.  Camp Butler National Cemetery in Springfield had 571 burials.  The cemetery at Danville had 146 burials, the cemetery at Mound City had 54 and the cemetery at Rock Island had 636 burials.  The Quincy National Cemetery, burying only family members, performed no interments last year, and the cemetery in Alton, with the same status, had three burials.  The Sunset Cemetery, a state veterans cemetery in Quincy that received a VA grant, had 46 burials in 2006.  VA provided 11,217 headstones and markers for the graves of veterans in Illinois and sent more than 14,000 Presidential Memorial Certificates to Illinois survivors of veterans.