Lara Dean, MD
VEA Physician
caring physicians
providing quality healthcare
VEA Physician
Victoria Emergency Associates was started in 2002 by Dr. Jim Brand and a team of physicians providing Emergency Department physician services at DeTar Healthcare System in Victoria, Texas.
We started with a simple but important mission that remains to this day: to be caring and professional physicians while providing quality healthcare to our patients. This approach has been rewarded with a strong reputation in the hospital industry enabling us to grow organically by word of mouth. We have currently grown to 20+ facilities, 200+ providers and over 300K in annual visits. Our facilities range from large urban medical centers to rural community hospitals.
We now provide our client hospital emergency, hospitalist and telemedicine services. After taking responsibility for an EM or HM service, we have reliably improved physician quality at each site. This has allowed VEA to improve important metrics: patient experience, clinical quality, and throughput measures for our client hospitals and their communities. No matter size, location or specialty, we focus on providing the highest quality medical care to the patients we collaboratively serve with our client hospitals
Dr. Brand and his teams of talented physicians have provided the leadership and management necessary to provide high-quality emergency and hospital medicine in Victoria for almost 25 years. They have the unique ability to blend the compassionate practice of medicine, with the business skills required to survive the ever-changing landscape of modern medical care. The physicians and mid-level practitioners that staff Dr. Brand’s facilities enjoy working in an environment where the reasons they went into medicine are respected, and their good ideas are implemented. As a result, our hospital’s emergency departments and hospitalist program consistently exceed our patients’ expectations, receiving some of the highest consumer ratings in the country.
Victoria Emergency Associates, VEA, has provided care for CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Healthcare patients in our emergency rooms that include acute urban hospitals, suburban hospitals and freestanding emergency departments caring for both adults and children. VEA has provided exceptional care that puts the patient first. VEA, founded by Dr. Jim Brand, has succeeded in establishing a large, scalable regional emergency medicine group that meets the needs of the most complex patients with a small community approach to personalized care. CHRISTUS Santa Rosa's Mission is to "Extend The Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ". That Mission depends on partners like VEA who live our Ministry each day.
I have been a Hospital CEO for over 30 years and have spent my career managing rural hospitals. Finding and maintaining adequate, quality coverage in Emergency Rooms has always been a challenge. I have worked with national, regional and local groups in the various states where I had worked prior to coming to Uvalde. Victoria Emergency Associates (VEA) had been providing services here in Uvalde for at least four years prior to my arrival six years ago. I am pleased to say that our ten-plus year relationship and the quality of providers they utilize has been outstanding. Dr. Brand and his team at VEA work very hard to ensure that the physicians and mid-levels who work in our facility are not only great providers but strive to make sure these providers are the right fit for our community and that they work well with our local physicians. If there is an issue in the Emergency Room, I can trust that VEA will address it quickly and professionally. I would not hesitate to recommend them to any hospital needing Emergency Room Services.
We partnered with VEA in early 2015 and it has been the best clinical decision our hospital has made in my 16+ years with the facility. Dr. Brand and his team have dramatically improved the level of emergency and trauma care to our rural community and surrounding areas with providers that not only have outstanding credentials, they truly understand the E.D. is the front door and face of our business. Passionate, thoughtful, and clinically exceptional care is delivered by the VEA providers and we are proud to have them on our team.
Yoakum Community Hospital has developed a great partnership with VEA over the last 5 years. They are always very responsive and work diligently to provide excellent patient care to the members of our community. We are thankful for their quality physicians, who continue to serve our rural community with kindness and compassion.
I have had the opportunity to work with our VEA emergency physicians as both a Hospital President and as a practicing surgeon. Their professionalism, knowledge, skills, and collegial relationships are among the best I have experienced during my 40+ year professional career.
Victoria Emergency Associates is committed to delivering the best possible patient experience and quality of care, improving patient safety and operational efficiency. They understand the importance of working to foster an environment of collaboration focused on the best interest of the patient not only in the Emergency Department but across the full continuum of care. With a leadership team that is accessible and responsive, VEA is a trusted partner in caring for our patients and our community.
In 2019 I celebrated my 30th year as a healthcare executive overseeing the operations of numerous medical centers of all sizes and ownership in both Texas and Oklahoma. I have worked with VEA since 2009. In my experience, they are the premier group providing Emergency Physician Services. With VEA you receive the quality of physicians and support that only independent groups provide with the personal service and commitment only found in regionally-based groups, such as VEA.
I can honestly say that I never felt so much a part of a work family as I have with VEA... the fiber of the company has proven to be what I sensed when I first started to work here – kindness, camaraderie, and professionalism.
I can honestly say that I never felt so much a part of a work family as I have with VEA... the fiber of the company has proven to be what I sensed when I first started to work here – kindness, camaraderie, and professionalism.
Victoria Emergency Associates is interested in talking with like-minded, quality hospitals. If you are interested in learning more about what VEA can offer your hospital, please contact us.