Summary
Background: Recently, VA underwent two unprecedented disruptive changes that fundamentally altered how care is delivered to Veterans. First, the VA MISSION Act was implemented in June 2019. Arguably the biggest policy change in VA care delivery since the "Kizer revolution,” MISSION’s purpose is to improve Veteran access to care, especially for services that have traditionally been resource-limited in VA due to geographic/ temporal barriers (e.g., specialty care). While VA healthcare systems were still in the early phases of adapting to MISSION, the COVID pandemic spread rapidly across the worl