Veterans Affairs committee  —at the present time as well, so that they hear about what the plan is for their care within the Canadian armed forces and what the plan is as they transition out.

Veterans Affairs committee  We've targeted 50 to 55 cases per case manager, which would suggest that I would need another 20 case managers in order to reach that particular target.

Veterans Affairs committee  Well, the universities have funding to produce a certain number of professionals in each of the professions. I believe it is the limitation of the training system to be able to produce greater numbers of these professionals at this time.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. Psychiatry hasn't been an attractive profession sometimes as well, so not a lot of residents would necessarily look at psychiatry as a profession.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sir, I didn't have a spy, but I read the transcript.

Veterans Affairs committee  So, Mr. Chairman if I may, in fairness to my colleagues in Veterans Affairs—

Veterans Affairs committee  Probably so. I put the caveat on the seven days to those that have complex cases. As I said in my opening comments, we have a prioritization system and we will prioritize those persons with very complex care to the top of the list. We are seeing them within seven days. We have a

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll start out. The medical world is very dynamic and we do our best to keep our finger on the pulse of what's going on in the medical community. We do that through our relationships with organizations like the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Psychological Association

Veterans Affairs committee  We have only 68 full-time positions for case managers. At the present time we're restricted as to how many case managers we can actually hire. Case management is a kind of specialized field of nursing in our consideration, so there aren't a whole lot of case managers out there.

Veterans Affairs committee  Giving the members those files as they depart is relatively new for us. Traditionally, the files have gone to Archives Canada, and Veterans Affairs has not had to come back to us. If it's five years out that a member applies to Veterans Affairs, they would get the file from Archi

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the work we're undertaking right now, trying to better link up our case management systems, is the key for us with respect to ensuring that we don't have a gap or potential break in the continuity of care as they transition from us to Veterans Affairs Canada. That's where

Veterans Affairs committee  I know there is work under way within our VAC CAF steering committee, including discussions around My VAC Account, which I think is a good idea. The intention is that, as members join the Canadian Armed Forces, they become aware of Veterans Affairs Canada and may start a VAC acco

Veterans Affairs committee  I think our requirement, our mandate, is to find efficiencies always. We as an organization have tried very hard to be as efficient as possible. We have something we call our quality and patient safety advisory committee. Within that quality and patient safety mandate, we are fo

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a very good point. Absolutely. We have our education program called the road to mental readiness. We do have a study to look at the road to mental readiness and the effectiveness of the road to mental readiness program. One of the things that we've identified is that yo

Veterans Affairs committee  We have 66 case managers, who are carrying on average 70 cases per person. It is a difficult workload for them, so we need to examine how we can make sure that they are able to provide, from a case management perspective, for the care that our personnel need. We are able to prior