Salesforce and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) announced on March 26 the deployment of a new agentic operating system designed to improve incident response and veteran care across more than 150 Department of Veterans Affairs medical and outpatient centers.
The VHA serves between 16 million and 18 million veterans nationwide. To support this large population, the organization needed a way to connect everyone involved in delivering care, from medical teams to caregivers, service providers, and VA employees. The new system integrates tools, software, and resources into one platform while helping teams keep up with changing needs, share best practices efficiently, create operational efficiencies, and reduce costs without affecting care quality.
By using Salesforce’s real-time data insights along with Slack’s AI-powered features as a single operating system, the VHA is moving away from static reporting toward automated problem-solving. This approach eliminates administrative silos and allows staff to focus more time on direct support for veterans. “We use Slack as a connective performance-management layer that drives real work. It enables us to cut costs, create efficiencies, and focus more time and energy on front-line Veteran care,” said Josh Geiger, Senior Advisor to the VHA Chief Operating Officer.
The transition affects over 370,000 employees by enabling intelligent collaboration at scale. When facility metrics indicate potential issues—such as increased wait times or lower patient satisfaction—AI automatically brings together relevant experts in Slack channels for quick resolution. The platform also summarizes chat histories through AI tools so urgent improvement areas can be identified faster.
Greg Goins, Acting Chief Operating Officer at the US Department of Veterans Affairs said: “This strategy has enabled the VHA to move faster, identify trends across pockets of information, and bring the learnings or best practices from every incident to any program or facility.” Dave Rey, President of Global Public Sector at Salesforce added: “The VHA is setting a new standard for how large-scale government agencies can use AI to move from reactive reporting to proactive care… This is about more than just efficiency; it’s about helping ensure that every Veteran… receives five-star care fueled by the collective expertise of the entire VA system.”
Looking ahead, VHA plans pilot programs linking its Slack infrastructure with VA Health Connect—the agency’s virtual contact center—to further integrate telehealth collaborations into this AI-enhanced environment.
