DoD Should Screen for PTSD At Least Annually, IoM Says WASHINGTON - PTSD screening should be conducted at least once a year when primary care providers see servicemembers at DoD treatment centers or at TRICARE facilities, according to a congressionally mandated report from the Institute of Medicine. The report notes that, of servicemembers and veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and screened positive for PTSD symptoms, about 40% have received a referral for additional evaluation or treatment, and of those referred, about 65% go on to receive treatment. Morel
Capitol Hill Event Focuses on PTSD WASHINGTON - Military leaders sought to put the spotlight on PTSD at an event held recently on Capitol Hill to commemorate the third annual National Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day. The awareness day was created by a congressional resolution that calls for June 27th to be recognized as a day to raise public awareness about issues related to PTSD. The VA National Center for PTSD reports that experts think that about 11%-20% of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffer from PTSD. More
Native American Veterans Falling through Healthcare Cracks WASHINGTON - The VA and IHS need to better coordinate services for American Indian and Alaska Native veterans, federal officials acknowledged at a recent Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing. AI/ANs participate in the military more than any other ethnic group as a percentage of the population, according to the Indian Health Service. Both VA and IHS provide care to these veterans, but at issue has been whether these veterans are falling between the cracks. More
Eve Kerr, MD, director of the Center for Clinical Management Research at the VA Ann Arbor, MI.
ANN ARBOR, MI — VA clinicians may be doing too good of a job of controlling blood pressure in patients with diabetes, according to research suggesting that as many as 8% of those veterans may have been overtreated. Researchers note VA’s “impressive progress” in increasing blood pressure (BP) management in patients with diabetes but caution that, because of broad performance measures, it “appears that in the VA, rates of potential overtreatment are currentlyapproaching, and perhaps even exceeding, the rate of undertreatment and that high rates of achieving current performance measurement targets are directly associated with medication escalation that may increase risk for patients.” More Please read this article and participate in this month's online opinion poll whether performance measures lead to overtreatment of chronically ill patients at the VA? l
PHILADELPHIA — While VHA must face the challenge of meeting the needs both of aging veterans and recently deployed servicemembers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, the two groups have at least one problem in common: a high incidence of chronic pain. In fact, chronic pain plagues more than 50% of all veterans served by the VA. Among incoming veterans to the VHA, 56% report chronic musculoskeletal discomfort. More
Disability Evaluation Waits Longer Despite Efforts to Speed Process WASHINGTON — While VA and DoD have reported to Congress that they have been working to speed up the time it takes injured and ill troops to get through the disability evaluation system, the waits actually have gotten longer, according to Government Accountability Office testimony at a recent hearing. According to the GAO, in FY 2011, only 19% of active-duty servicemembers and 18% of guard and reserve members completed the IDES process and received benefits within established goals. This is in comparison to 32% and 37% in FY 2010. More
Devices Make EHR Functionality More Portable for VA Clinicians WASHINGTON — The past few years have seen a revolution in personal technology. Smartphones and tablet computers have made all the functions of the personal computer and the Internet completely portable and far more convenient. With a new program that began at the Washington DC VA Medical Center (DCVAMC) and is rolling out across the VA system, VA hopes to adapt this technology to bring that same convenience and portability to the interactions between care providers and veterans. More
“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” — Vince Lombardi, NFL Football Coach (1913-1970)
Editor-in-Chief, Chester ‘Trip’ Buckenmaier III, MD, COL, MC, USA
If you have followed this column, you know I’m a sailor. So many times I have stared off into the horizon in a direction away from home, thinking “The breeze is right, the seas following, the weather fair and with a slight turn of the wheel we could be off to destinations unknown.”
I often muse, with a sly smile on my face, it might take months before the Army knew I was gone, stopped my salary and actually figured out where I might be. These thoughts are my quiet, private, whimsical fantasy. I would imagine everyone in federal medicine has similar visions of a personal escape from the challenges and stressors that come with being a part of the team that drives one of the largest healthcare systems in the world. More
WASHINGTON — The past few years have seen a revolution in personal technology. Smartphones and tablet computers have made all the functions of the personal computer and the Internet completely portable and far more convenient. With a new program that began at the Washington DC VA Medical Center (DCVAMC) and is rolling out across the VA system, VA hopes to adapt this technology to bring that same convenience and portability to the interactions between care providers and veterans. 
