The Women Health Services Office (Women’s Health) at the Department Veteran Affairs (VA) provides programmatic and strategic support to implement positive changes in the provision of care for all women Veterans. In 1988, the Women Veterans Health Program was created to streamline services for women Veterans to provide more cost-effective medical and psychosocial care. At that time 4.4% of Veterans were women. The current projected percentage of U.S. Veterans who are women is 10%.

The Women Veterans Health Program was elevated to a Strategic Health Care Group within the Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards in 2007, increasing its scope of activities to include all services provided to women Veterans. The VA is actively addressing resource needs so that the proper training, as well as equipment and supplies (including DEXA scans, mammography machines, ultra-sound, and biopsy equipment) are in place in facilities.

To address the VA’s program mission—ensure timely, equitable, high-quality, comprehensive health care services are provided in a sensitive and safe environment at VA health facilities nationwide—the VA recognized the need for a new Women’s Health/Primary Care Service facility at Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia.

The VA awarded the project to Advon. This job included general construction, demolition and removal of existing structures, site alterations, walks, grading, drainage, structural and utility systems, and necessary removal of any existing temporary structures or existing systems.

This facility affords women with comprehensive primary care by a proficient and interested primary care provider; privacy, safety, dignity, and sensitivity to gender-specific needs; state-of-the-art health care equipment and technology; and high-quality preventive and clinical care, equal to that provided to male Veterans.