Department of Veterans Affairs Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES)

May 2004 Department of Veterans Affairs Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) Over the last half century, American medicine has transformed itself from hospital centered to patient centered treatment. Most patients see their physicians on an outpatient basis and much treatment is provided by prescription drugs. Mentally ill patients are no longer consigned to remotely located, thousand-bed asylums for the remainder of their lives. Treatment for tuberculosis no longer involves lengthy institutionalization. VA medicine has kept up with, and sometimes led, these innovations. Additionally, in 1996, the Congress enacted legislation expanding eligibility for the complete continuum of VA . . .