Federal Reports

During an interview related to the Fiscal Year 2018 Financial Statement Audit, a United States Capitol Police (USCP or the Department) official informed the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of a Civilian Employee Handbook, dated March 7, 1997, which the USCP is still distributing to new civilian employees.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a focused evaluation of the quality of inpatient and outpatient care delivered at the Beckley VA Medical Center (Facility). The review covered key clinical and administrative processes associated with promoting quality care—Leadership and Organizational Risks; Quality, Safety, and Value; Credentialing and Privileging; Environment of Care; Medication Management: Controlled Substances Inspection Program; Mental Health Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Care; Long-Term Care: Geriatric Evaluations; Women’s Health: Mammography Results and Follow-Up; and High-Risk Processes: Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections. The leadership team appears stable with the hiring of the Chief of Staff and Associate Director in November 2017. The leaders are committed to continuous active engagement with employees and patients. The OIG’s review did not identify any substantial organizational risk factors. However, the OIG noted that the Facility appears to have opportunities to improve the reporting and tracking of sentinel events. The senior leadership team was knowledgeable about selected Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning metrics and should continue to take actions to improve performance of selected Quality of Care and Efficiency metrics likely contributing to the most current “3-Star” rating. The OIG noted findings in five of the eight areas of clinical operations reviewed and issued eight recommendations that are attributable to the Director, Chief of Staff, Associate Director for Patient Care Services, and Associate Director. The identified areas with deficiencies are: (1) Credentialing and Privileging • Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation processes (2) Environment of Care • Frequency, participation, and documentation of Environment of Care rounds (3) Medication Management: Controlled Substances Inspection Program • Correction of annual physical security survey deficiencies • Verification of controlled substances orders (4) Women’s Health: Mammography Results and Follow-Up • Mammography results electronically linked to the radiology order (5) High-Risk Processes: Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection • Staff training

The Office of the Inspector General audited the network architecture of a nuclear facility to determine if the network architecture and assets in use to support a specific nuclear plant’s business and operational functions are compliant with TVA policies, procedures and identified best practices. In summary, we found TVA management used proven best practices in the design of the corporate physical and wireless networks and the control network. However, we found cabling that was not following manufacturer’s guidelines and several control network device configurations deviated from TVA baselines and industry best practices. TVA management agreed with our findings and recommendations.

TFC Consulting, Inc. (TFC), an independent licensed Certified Public Accounting firm, was contracted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Office of Inspector General (OIG), to conduct an agreed-upon procedures engagement to assess selected aspects of the State of Iowa’s compliance with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) regulations.

This report responds to a request from Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota about employee issues at the Dickinson Post Office. In response to that request, our objectives were to determine whether the U.S. Postal Service complied with employee payment requirements and assess employee engagement and staffing levels at the Dickinson, ND, Post Office.