Fayetteville VA Coastal Health Care System

Fayetteville VA Medical Center Associate Director James Galkowski recently arrived from the Durham VA Medical Center.

While he sees challenges facing the Fayetteville VA Medical Center, the new associate director for operations says he's excited about being part of the team he thinks will be leading the center through some big changes.

James Galkowski joined the team recently after a career that found him working in private practice and, most recently, at the Durham VA Medical Center.  The physician assistant comes to Fayetteville after nine years in Durham, most recently as associate chief of Ambulatory Care Services. He is the second permanent member of the leadership team to come onboard after almost a year of having interim associate directors.

As associate director, Galkowski is charged with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the facility – all the things that make the health care system here function, he said.  Comparing the center to a civilian company, Galkowski would be the chief operating officer while Center Director Elizabeth Goolsby would be the chief executive officer.

"(Goolsby) develops the strategic plan, while I execute the plan," Galkowski said.

He went on to say he had several reasons for wanting to come to Fayetteville.

"To me it's exciting to work with this team to expand our programs," Galkowski said.  "To open new facilities, to deal with the growth in our patient workload, to work under good leadership.  I know the VISN is going to support Fayetteville, so it's exciting joining this team."

He acknowledged there were some challenges to be dealt with in Fayetteville.

"Ensuring access in a growing environment will be a challenge," Galkowski said.  "More people want services.  We have some obvious space restraints.  And we'll be working at the macro level under the federal budget restraints that are impacting all areas of the government.  With the VA being the second largest government agency in manpower, we know we're going to be affected."
Change, though, is not necessarily a bad thing.

"The VA is undergoing a transformation.  The change to patient aligned care team is a paradigm shift from the hospital care environment we have now," he said.  "We're becoming much more Veteran-centric and patient focused.  We need to ensure the customer gets what they expect from the VA."

And you can expect to see the new associate director leading the hospital staff in the charge to change.

"We have to work toward a common goal.  None of this can occur without a total team effort."