Alaska VA Healthcare System

The Alaska VA Healthcare System offers primary, specialty, and mental health outpatient care to Veterans residing within a 586,400 square mile primary service area within VISN 20. The Alaska VA Healthcare System provides inpatient services to veterans in Alaska through a Joint Venture with the United States Air Force on nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base as well as through fee basis arrangements with community hospitals. A comprehensive Homeless Veteran Service is also located in Anchorage consisting of a Domiciliary Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program, Veterans Industries, CWT/TR, HUD/VASH, and outreach.

About this Facility
The Alaska VA Healthcare System (AVAHS) offers primary, specialty, and mental health outpatient care. Services are provided through a Joint Venture with the United States Air Force on nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base, as well as through purchased care arrangements with the community hospitals. The facility also features a comprehensive Homeless Veteran Service, consisting of a Domiciliary Residential Rehabilitation Program, Veterans Industries, Compensated Work Therapy Transitional Residence Program, VA Supported Program, and Outreach.

Partners and Education
The Alaska VA Healthcare System offers primary, specialty, and mental health outpatient care. Services are provided through a Joint Venture with the United States Air Force on nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base, as well as through purchased care arrangements with community hospitals. The facility also features a comprehensive Homeless Veteran Service, consisting of a Domiciliary Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program, Veterans Industries, Compensated Work Therapy Transitional Residence Program, VA Supported Housing Program, and outreach.
Academic Partners
University of Alaska Anchorage *
University of Washington *
Alaska Family Practice Residency Program *

Anchorage is the entry point for many Alaska visitors, who fly in to board a cruise ship or climb into a rental car and never look back. But this city is well worth visiting. The Alaska Native Heritage Center offers insights into the area's earliest inhabitants, and the Alaska Zoo is the place to see animals you might not spot in the wilderness. The Chugach State Park and Chugach National Forest are within an hour's drive of Anchorage, so you can go hiking, fishing or whale-watching during the day and then kick back in a brew pub or top restaurant at night.

Anchorage is a rugged city beautifully settled between the base of the Chugach mountain range and Cook Inlet. An urbanized wilderness, humans are not the city's only inhabitants: We share the city with bears, moose and a small wolf pack. Year-round outdoor recreation is very accessible and venues are well-maintained to make the most of the city's setting. Anchorage is something rugged and wild, beautiful and urban all at once, so enjoy all it has to offer, and be sure to watch out for the wildlife!

Throughout the city are more than 400 miles of paved and unpaved trails maintained year-round for walking, running, in-line skating, biking and nordic skiing. The most popular trail systems include Kincaid Park, the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail and Far North Bicentennial Park. Anchorage's most popular day hike is Flattop Mountain, accessible via the Glen Alps parking lot in Chugach State Park. Also accessible from the Glen Alps parking lot is Powerline Pass, an unpaved trail for biking, skiing or hiking that runs through a valley in the Chugach Mountains, connecting to Eagle River.

For fishermen, Ship Creek is a popular stream flowing from the Chugach Mountains through downtown Anchorage and into Cook Inlet. Silver and king salmon runs in June and July have the river lined on both sides from dawn to dusk (which are quite close together that time of year). It is also the site of the Slam'n Salm'n Derby, an annual contest to hook the heaviest fish.

For two weeks each February and March, Fur Rendezvous, or "Rondy," Anchorage's winter festival, celebrates Alaska's fur trading days with a sled dog race, carnival, parade, games and more. On the first Saturday in March, mushers and their dogs from around the world meet on Fourth Avenue for the ceremonial start of the "Last Great Race," the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Named for the sled dog route that supplied miners and villagers with goods from mail to medicine via dog sled, the actual race starts in Willow, about 70 miles north of Anchorage, and follows a trail more than 1,000 miles to Nome. Mushers traverse some of the most rugged terrain and face some of the harshest winter weather in North America.