Health expenditures are rising inexorably; health status shows relatively little gain; technological possibilities are outstripping our ability or willingness to provide a commensurate level of resources. Clinical and administrative managers face increasingly difficult choices among alternative interventions in attempting to resolve these problems. If health services research is to succeed as a tool for assisting these decisions, clinicians, administrators, and researchers must view it as an integral part of management. This paper describes this concept of health services research and its implementation by the VA HSR&D Service, results from 1981 to date, and future directions. Four programs implement the Service's system to make relevant, valid information accessible to VA staff who can use it to improve veterans' health care: Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) Program; HSR&D Field Program, which implements the Service's mission in various local areas VA-wide; Special Projects Program, responsive to system-wide issues, including technology assessment and transfer; and Resources Program, the Service's own management system. The Service's impact on improving veterans health care is already apparent. However, the true value of the HSR&D system will become apparent only in the 1990s, after the capacity for conducting health services research has been built and integrated fully with clinical and administrative practice. The VA, the nation's largest health care system, has a unique opportunity to demonstrate how health services research can improve health care.