VA Secretary Doug Collins Visits Eastern Colorado VA Healthcare System

Barbara Crimond | May 11, 2026 | Comments 0

On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins visited the Eastern Colorado VA Healthcare System in Aurora, Colo., meeting with staff, volunteers and Veterans. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Congressman Gabe Evans (R-Colo.-08), Congressman Jeff Crank (R-Colo.-05) joined Secretary Collins for a tour of the medical center highlighting the facility’s advancements in healthcare for Veterans and specialized areas of care.

During the visit, the group met with Veterans and staff and toured key clinical areas, including the Intensive Care Unit and Spinal Cord Injury Clinic. The visit underscored the Secretary’s ongoing commitment to improving VA health care, benefits, and services for Veterans.

The Secretary underscored his commitment to Veterans by underscoring steps to address concerns with staffing saying, “Now what we can do is put people where they are needed. We’re empowering our leaders to do what they need to do to take care of Veterans.” Eastern Colorado VA Healthcare leadership confirmed the statement noting their time to hire critical positions is down to 28 days.

Secretary Collins, Governor Jared Polis, and the two Congressman also recognized top-performing VA ECHCS employees for their exceptional dedication to delivering high-quality care to over 145,000 Veterans across Eastern Colorado and the surrounding region.

Following the medical center visit, Secretary Collins and Congressman Evans held a Veteran’s roundtable at the Brighton Elks Lodge in Brighton, Colo. During the roundtable, Collins said “We are the largest integrated healthcare system in the world, we do it better and we’re going to continue doing it better because we take care of the most important people – Veterans.”

Immediately after the roundtable, Secretary Collins and Congressman Evans met with local media to answer their questions.

Throughout the visit, Collins also highlighted national accomplishments of the VA since he was confirmed.

The backlog of Veterans waiting for VA benefits is down 62% since Jan. 20, 2025, after it increased 24% during the Biden Administration.
VA has eliminated the backlog of Veteran families waiting for VA health care.
VA is processing record numbers of disability claims, reaching an all-time fiscal-year high of three million claims processed Sept. 30.
VA opened 25 new health care clinics, expanding access for Vets around the country.
Since Jan. 20, VA has offered Veterans more than 1.9 million appointments outside of normal operating hours. These early-morning, evening, and weekend appointments are giving Veterans more timely and convenient options for care.
VA will spend nearly $5 billion in FY26 to modernize, repair and improve health care facilities, the largest non-recurring maintenance investment in VA’s history. VA is also spending an additional $800 million on infrastructure improvements to ensure department facilities provide safe and effective patient care. These additional funds come from savings gleaned from various VA reform efforts.
VA launched a reorganization of the Veterans Health Administration management structure, a long overdue step that will empower local hospital directors, eliminate duplicative layers of bureaucracy and ensure consistent application of VA policies across all department medical facilities.
VA issued a request for proposals for new community care contracts that will improve health care choice and quality for Veterans over the next decade.
VA increased the expenditure cap for in-home and community-based services for Veterans with certain complex medical conditions. This will significantly reduce out-of-pocket costs for eligible Veterans and their families for services like home health aide, home respite, community adult day health care, Veteran Directed Care, and skilled home health, which will make it easier for Veterans to continue residing in their homes.
VA is accelerating the deployment of its integrated electronic health record system, after the program was nearly dormant for almost two years under the Biden Administration.
VA permanently housed 51,936 homeless Veterans across the country in FY25, the highest total in seven years.
VA has made it easier and faster for VA-enrolled Veterans to access care from non-VA providers at the department’s expense.
VA has made it easier for women Veterans to access gynecology care.
VA partnered with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to identify and recover $106 million in duplicate billing.
VA has brought tens of thousands of employees back to the office, where we can work better as a team to serve Veterans.
VA has terminated union contracts for most bargaining unit employees and redirected millions in wasteful union spending back to Veterans.
VA canceled Biden Administration plans to spend $77 million on electric vehicle chargers and is instead spending the money to fight cancer and improve health care at facilities around the nation.