Panel: Military health system needs help
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Many Iraq war soldiers, veterans and their families are not getting needed psychological help because a stressed military's mental health system is overwhelmed and understaffed, a task force of psychologists found.
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There is too little support for the long-term mental health needs of veterans, a committee of MPs finds.
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War in Iraq has caused a public health  disaster that has left the country's medical system in tatters  and increased the risk of disease and death, according to a  report released on Tuesday.
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SAN DIEGO -- Health care experts testifying on an overhaul of the stateâs health and human services expressed support for many of the changes Friday but raised several concerns, specifically over the issues of consolidating departments and using new
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WASHINGTON -- No war or other national emergency would overwhelm the military's medical care system and require a draft of civilian health care workers, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday.
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A blood substitute the military wants to test on civilian trauma victims is urgently needed to save lives on the battlefield in places like Iraq, a Navy official told federal advisers Thursday.
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Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today announced the formation of an independent panel to look into what he called an "unacceptable situation" with outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and he vowed that those responsible will be held accountable.
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A Pentagon review board investigating conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center heard testimony yesterday from injured soldiers and their families describing continued bureaucratic snafus and problems with patient treatment more than three weeks after such problems were disclosed in the media.
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The poor conditions of the Army medical center will be the subject of hearings in Congress this week.
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War in Iraq has caused a public health  disaster that has left the country's medical system in tatters  and increased the risk of disease and death, according to a  report released Tuesday.
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The majority of treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder that are used to treat hundreds of thousands of veterans lack rigorous scientific evidence that they are effective, according to a report issued yesterday by a panel of the federal government's top scientists.
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The health care system for veterans is facing a potential deluge of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems.
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Thousands of Iraq war veterans who could have suffered traumatic brain injury may be getting unnecessary or inadequate health care
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Nearly 1.7 million military veterans have no health insurance or access to government hospitals and clinics for veterans, according to a doctors' group that favors federally financed health care.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs' system for handling disability claims is strained to its limit, and the Bush administration's  efforts to relieve backlogs will not be enough to serve veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, investigators told a House committee yesterday.
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The U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs still aren&#39;t able to share complete electronic health records of military members and veterans despite working on a project for nine years, employees of the two agencies told a congressional committee Wednesday.While the two agencies have begun to share some text records, including discharge summaries and emergency-room reports, it won&#39;t be until 2008 before they can share vital signs of patients, laboratory data, and family histories, said Dr. Gerald Cross, principal deputy undersecretary of health in the VA&#39;s Veterans Health Administration.Officials from both agencies told the U.S. House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations they&#39;re making good progress, but issues remain. &quot;The work to make data computable between two different health-care systems is very complex and requires complete standardization of data,&quot; Cross said.And the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has yet to see a comprehensive plan from the two agencies to share e-health records, added Valerie Melvin, director of human capital and management information systems issues for the GAO. The GAO has issued multiple reports since 2001 calling for VA and DOD to improve their health records sharing, she noted.The agencies have made progress on short-term projects to share data between some health-care centers, she said.&quot;These exchanges are limited, as significant work still remains to achieve the long-term goal of a comprehensive electronic medical record,&quot; Melvin said. It&#39;s unclear how a number of ad hoc projects will fit into an e-health record program, she said.Lawmakers stressed the importance of getting a record-sharing program in place as wounded military members come back from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and will get medical service from both agencies. &quot;This is a critically important issue,&quot; said Rep. Harry Mitchell, an Arizona Democrat and subcommittee chairman. &quot;Thousands of our servicemen and women require and will continue to require significant medical care.&quot;While lawmakers called for the agencies to move faster, the GAO noted some progress. The agencies have developed repositories for health data and are starting to populate them with data, a GAO report said. Seven DOD and VA sites are using an interface to the data repositories, the report said.&quot;Much work&quot; remains before the e-health records sharing system is fully operational, the report said.The DOD and VA effort has been plagued by several setbacks in the past nine years. An interface for a data repository was delayed for more than a year at one point, and in July 2002, the agencies split the project into two initiatives after multiple delays.In July, after nine years of work, the two agencies awarded a contract for a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for a common inpatient health record system.Together, the two agencies have spent more than $1.8 billion on health records initiatives since 1998, according to the GAO.But officials from both agencies expressed optimism. Asked if they could share all data within a year, three officials from the DOD and one from the VA said they expect that to happen.&quot;We are all working toward the same end -- to provide the highest-quality care to our nation&#39;s heroes, past and present,&quot; said Dr. Stephen Jones, the DOD&#39;s principal deputy assistant secretary for health affairs.
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RICHMOND, Aug. 30 -- The communications breakdowns, gaps in the mental health system and confusion over student privacy laws that were identified as problems by the panel that investigated the massacre at Virginia Tech might take years to correct and require action by the federal government, panel...