A new office that will develop “personal, patient-centered models of care” for the Veterans who avail of health care services at Veterans Affairs facilities across the country has been created, according to a feature on the website of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The new office, called the Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation, is based in Arlington, Virginia. It is being led by its director, Dr. Tracy Williams Gaudet, who served as the executive director of Duke Integrated Medicine at the Duke University Medical Center since 2001. She earned her bachelor’s degree, as well as her medical degree, from Duke University. The office began operations on January 17.

Dr. Robert A. Petzel, VA Undersecretary for Health, said: “VA has become one of the Nation’s leaders in quality health care and is increasingly cited as the standard to emulate… However, we must always continue to find ways to deliver more with our systems to the incredible patients we are honored to serve. We need to be data-driven, providing the treatments and therapies with the best clinical evidence, and we need to be patient-centered, never losing sight that we have been given the noble mission to care for our Nation’s Veterans, families and survivors.”

Dr. Gaudet also gave her own message, and said: “The Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation will be a living, learning organization in which we will discover and demonstrate new models of care, analyze the results, and then create strategies that allow for their translation and implementation across the VA.  VA will continue to be a national leader in innovation, and, in this way, we will provide the future of high-quality health care to our Veterans.”