Medical care for those who’ve served is a priority for all of our communities across the Empire State. Spectrum News 1 goes inside the Syracuse facility to see how they are being held accountable and trends over the years inside the VA.

“In fact, there's less than one half percent of people in the United States of America that actually ever served in the military,” said Syracuse VA Medical Center Director Frank Pearson. “We're here to serve them.”

Within the veteran community, the horror stories of long waits, inaccessibility and more used to be the calling card of medical care. The Syracuse center and many others across the nation are working to change that.

“And here we have 14 different what we call primary care teams. So, so their house through here as well,” said Pearson.

The goal is for the 50,000 veterans in the region and millions across the U.S. to be able to maintain medical care instead of waiting for something to go wrong.

“The beauty of that is that patients are seeing the same provider every visit,” said Pearson. “So they have their own providers and you know the providers really get to know the patients.”

Furthering the betterment of care for those who’ve served is the referral and education center who spend their days reaching out to those coming in for care — promoting the "million veteran program."

“So what happens is that when we get veterans that are coming to the VA, we ask them if they'll participate this this whole project is designed for veterans to help veterans and so we're gaining powerful, very powerful information," said Pearson.

Vets have several ways to give input to improve their stays. Pearson lauds top 80% standings for the salt city in a national comparison of weekly patient surveys, or "trust scores."

“So that's a big metric that the VA looks at,” Pearson added. “Because our veterans have, as we've talked about before, there were some trust issues with the Veterans Administration in the past.”

It’s a big hill to climb but many across the VA believe in the progress made.

“I think that you've seen over the last decade, a great, great priority on veteran care. You've seen the advent of the Choice Act and then the mission act that gives the veterans a lot of choice and where they're going to be able to get their care of course we want the VA at Syracuse to be our number one priority,” said Pearson. “And so we're really working hard to make sure that we do that.”

The quality of care can be reflected in veteran’s attitudes toward the hospitals, clinics and outpatient centers.

“Veterans now will reach out whereas they didn’t necessarily before,” he said.

And the VA continues to forge ahead with improvements.

“We're here to serve. Access is our top priority. Along with the quality of care," said Pearson.

The Syracuse VA serves more than 50,000 veterans in the region, alone. They also have a state of the art spinal care center that is a specialty center used by veterans from across the state and even neighboring ones.