[CONSIDER] Include Veteran Canteen Service on VAMC pages

[mmiddaugh]

Description

Discussed with VCS and VEO stakeholders 6/26/23

Veteran Canteen Service (VCS) is a self-sustaining entity providing merchandise and services to Veterans enrolled in VA’s Health Care system, their families, caregivers, VA employees, volunteers and visitors. Revenues generated from VCS are used to support a variety of programs such as: VA’s Rehabilitation Games, Fisher Houses, Poly-Trauma Centers for OIF/OEF/OND Veterans, disaster relief efforts, Substance Abuse Cessation, VA’s Homelessness initiatives, Women Veterans, Veteran Suicide Prevention and other activities. VCS is both onsite/physical (VAMC campuses) and online retail property (unauthenticated) Veteran value: discounts, reasonably priced merchandise and services essential to Veteran comfort and well-being

Goals

To increase visibility of this under-utilized Veteran benefit

Options for measurable outcomes include:

• use of online site
• foot traffic into physical locations (can be measured through register data)
• sales numbers

Tasks

• Align service offering with existing VHA taxonomy to identify opportunities to include VCS in health service accordions (i.e., optometry) - Facilities/Michelle/VHA DM
• Discovery on new health service to represent VCS offerings
• Campaign Landing page - Sitewide/Dave/VHA DM

[mmiddaugh]

Discovery into available benefits and services Q: Related to opportunities to surface the Veteran Canteen Service from within existing available services, there seems to be an alignment with Whole health and Optometry. Might there be any other overlap with existing patient care/health services? A: We weave Whole Health into all our business lines from food (café/food court, coffee with health beverages and meals) to retail (WH related items for purchase like vitamins, healthy snacks, self care, eco friendly products) and beyond (our spaces are WH areas for Veterans and employees to relax and recharge in an environment that is their benefit).

Q: Related to creating a new service for VHA editors, it would help to understand the breadth of the benefits available through VCS.

In person

• Food court
• Coffee
• Café
• Retail store
• Barbershop
• ATM
• Vending
• MicroMarkets
• Farmer’s Markets
• Local Concessions

By phone

• Automotive tires

Online retail

• ShopVCS.com
• VCSRXeyewear.com – eyewear frames
• Coming soon – VCSPatriotVision.nextdaycontacts.com – contact lens B2B services – pertains to program offices and VSOs. Offerings include promotional and apparel items for Veterans or employees (for purchase/awards) and catering.

46 VHA facilities currently surface VCS on their webpages in some regard

• often in accordions in the "Prepare for your visit" section, titled "Canteen location and hours", "Dining, retail, and other services", for example
• Captain James A. Lovell Federal health care - VA Center has a Cafeteria and retail services detail page
• VA Syracuse health care has a Veterans Canteen Service Retail Store and Food Court program page which is not linked from Prepare for your visit or within left nav (not sure how it is intended to be found)

[mmiddaugh]

A reasonable first pass at this might be to point to VCS via Optometry national service description - no engineering or change management required

• VAMC Patient-friendly Name: Vision care, corrective lenses and eyeglasses
• VAMC Description: Our optometrists offer you routine eye exams, preventive vision testing and treatment for conditions like glaucoma. We also provide prescriptions for eyeglasses and other assistive devices.
• VAMC Common Conditions: vision exams, prescription eyeglasses, contact lenses

Next steps

• discuss with VHA digital media
• work with Content/IA on language
• confirm language with VCS

[mmiddaugh]

Update: VA service taxonomy descriptions are plain text fields. The text will be rendered as entered and does not support HTML markup. VBA design includes having a national link immediately after the national description, controlled by the Service Taxonomy. If that does well in usability testing, we could think about whether that pattern could be used in other cases

[mmiddaugh]

We've been asked by Jenny HL to make VCS optional for editors, whatever path we decide to pursue. We also need to ensure consistency of message. We will not pursue the addition to Optometry after learning that staff steer Veterans toward free benefits/services, rather than VCS. Justin and Blake (VHA DM) will work with VCS on CLP. - no further actions required from Facilities at this time - closing this issue.