ATLANTA — When Kai Mentzer was appointed executive director of the Atlanta's Veterans' Affairs Medical Center, he says he knew he was inheriting a number of challenges.
"I've done a lot of research," Mentzer said. "Six months ago I started really following what was happening in this organization and comparing it to what was happening in my organization."
Mentzer comes to Atlanta from the G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, where he served as Associate Medical Center Director.
June 3 was his first official day as executive director in Atlanta. Shortly after, he agreed to sit down with 11Alive Investigates for his first-ever news media interview.
"I think it's important to share with 160,000 veterans that we care for in Atlanta and 5,200 employees what my priorities are," he said of why he granted the interview request.
Mentzer joined the U.S. Army in 2003 as a nuclear, biological and chemical specialist, serving both stateside and in Afghanistan and South Korea.
"The Army was my second family," he said. "I didn't come from much, so having that opportunity to be a part of a big family I'm a part of meant a lot to me."
In 2009, his career aspirations of working in veteran care led him to Arizona, where he accepted a VA technical career field internship in housekeeping. It launched him into a career with the VA that included leadership roles in Bay Pines, Florida, South Central Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi.
His humble start in housekeeping is an experience that's clearly stuck with him, as he enthusiastically points out his plan to prioritize remodeling the Atlanta facility.
"We're fortunate in Atlanta to have a really good housekeeping department, they keep the facility pretty clean," he said. "The challenge is that you can only keep it so clean for so long before you have to start to invest in new furniture and new carpet, new walls. Those kinds of things make a difference to me."
Inheriting old issues
In its last hospital rating report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services gave the Atlanta VA Hospital in Decatur only 2 out of 5 stars in overall quality.
In the survey, patients reported unfavorable ratings when it came to safety, patient experience, and timely and effective care.
In 2022, an 11Alive investigation found veterans in Georgia were waiting months for critical health care. For Atlanta's VAMC, the wait time for new patients to receive care was 72 days on average, weeks longer than the national average of 15 days.
Addressing those concerns, Mentzer pointed out those numbers reported by the VA may not provide the most accurate picture of a patient's experience.
"The way that we capture the wait times and publicly present that is difficult to understand," he said. "If our veterans choose to wait six months, that becomes part of the average, so it's not an indicator of when our next available appointment is."
When presented with an example of a veteran who told 11Alive she had to wait six months for a cardiology appointment and had a heart attack in the meantime, Mentzer said that was unacceptable.
“First I would tell that veteran sorry, no veteran should have to wait that long to get the care that they have earned and that they deserve," he said. "When I hear stories like that, it makes me get emotional, which the veterans out there know that most of your emotions are pulled from you as you go through. But it really hurts me at the core of who I am as a person because that's something that we did wrong.”
Hearing and addressing concerns
Mentzer said he's always received his own medical care from the VA facilities he's worked for and will continue to do so in Atlanta.
"There's three things that I want as a veteran," he said. "The first one is access, I want to be able to come to the VA when I need to. The second is I want to get better after I've come here. The third one is that while you're providing care for me, I want you to be friendly. So it's really not a big ask."
The Atlanta VA is the second largest in the country and one of the fastest growing.
Mentzer said staffing that growing need is high priority, but so is finding solutions in the meantime.
"We grow so rapidly it's difficult to bring those providers on so swiftly in addition to space," he said. "Last week I met with Emory, we discussed maybe partnering with them on space usage.”
He said he's also putting an emphasis on ensuring current staff members feel appreciated, safe, and heard.
In March, dozens of Atlanta VA nurses protested outside the Decatur facility. According to the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), the protest was held "to call attention to their serious patient safety concerns, including ongoing short-staffing, poor security measures to prevent workplace violence, and a lack of leadership accountability."
"Today we had a large number of nurses, more than 20, come visit me in the office, and I talked with them about their concerns," Mentzer said. "Before I left the room, they said thank you. One of them said, 'We've never had a director do that before.'"
He said he plans to continue those meetings every other week.
"I haven't heard about safety concerns yet, so I'll bring that up with them and see if they have any concerns. They did bring up some pay concerns that they had from last year that I helped to address. I'm a stickler for pay," he said.
He said a new magnetometer weapons detection system called Evolv has been installed in the Decatur facility to address safety concerns. During peak times, both employees and visitors will pass through it.
In reviewing other safety concerns and challenges reported monthly, Mentzer said it quickly became clear that transportation of veterans was an area that needed improvement.
"One of the safety challenges that we're facing here in Georgia that's come to light is the transporting of veterans from one of our outlying clinics that might be two hours away, and what's the best approach to a veteran that may be presenting with mental health concerns to get them to our hospital?" he said.
"My understanding is that there's some challenges with utilizing some of the emergency management services in those areas to get them here. So we're working through what's the best approach to get that managed."
When asked how he plans to implement his priorities amid budget constraints, Mentzer said he'll use the connections he's made over his career.
Seeking solutions through community
“I know a lot of the senior leaders in the VA and most of them have reached out to me and said, 'Let me know what you need so that we can help support the Georgia veterans,'" he said. "My plan is to find out what it is I need and then reach out and take them up on that offer.”
He said he'd already spoken with Senators Warnock and Ossoff over the phone, and planned to meet them in person as soon as possible to talk through their concerns and how they might work together to find solutions.
While he said stakeholder meetings are important, he vowed his main focus will always be on the veterans themselves.
"We have more than 20 sites of care and I plan to visit all of them next month," he said. "I want the veterans to know that it's a new day, it's a new time. Please bring forth the challenges that you've faced in the past that maybe weren't addressed to your liking and allow us to have a conversation."
Watch the full interview below: