G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center

Office of Public Affairs

Weather and Resource page:  http://www.jackson.va.gov/Weather_Alerts.asp

For all media inquiries, please contact Public Affairs Officer James Theres

at (601) 368-4477 or email james.theres@va.gov. 

The G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center is your source for news, information, publications and more.

Support and assistance to members of the News Media and community organizations:

• Responding to Media Queries
• Providing Subject Matter Experts
• Scheduling and coordinating interviews
• Fact sheets and statistical information
• Images/video of our facilities and official Logos
• Information about VA-related outreach and events
  

Note: Communicating with the Public and other stakeholders about how we provide exceptional healthcare to Veterans is vital to the work we do. Towards that end, we make every attempt to assist News Media in their newsgathering, to provide access to our facilities, and to make expert resources available. Our top priority, however, is protecting the privacy and security of the patients we serve.

Setting Up Media Interviews

Please contact the hospital Public Affairs Officer if you are interested in locating a VA official or subject matter expert for a story. Patients, in particular, must agree to be interviewed and photographed and must sign a consent form.

Visiting Our Facilities 
We strictly adhere to federal guidelines regarding patient privacy as outlined by the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To protect our patients’ privacy, we require all reporters and photographers visiting our facilities to be escorted by a Public Affairs staff member. Media access may be limited or denied to any area of a facility at the discretion of the medical center director, the patients’ healthcare team or individual physicians.

Patient Condition Reports
We are responsible for protecting the privacy and confidentiality of our patients and patient information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) governs privacy standards for healthcare information. If a patient has agreed to be listed in our hospital directory, we can provide a one-word condition after the patient’s correct first and last name, including exact spelling, are provided. If a patient has opted out of our directory or chooses not to have a condition released, staff will not be able to provide a condition update or even acknowledge the individual is a patient. Our response will be “I have no information available for a person by that name.”