Headlines for Thursday, December 15, 2011

Headlines for Thursday, December 15, 2011: USS Carl Vinson Connects with Social Media; Separating Sailors Retain Some TRICARE Benefits.

Post-Deployment Health

The Air Force post-deployment health reassessment is designed to identify Airmen's health issues that can emerge in the months following their most recent deployment.

Holiday Greetings

DNU Flash - Civilians send holiday greetings to service members.

Headlines for October 7, 2009

DNU Flash - Headlines from around the fleet: Service members are reminded to get vaccinated for the seasonal flu and H1N1 virus; The Navy implements a new recruiting campaign; TRICARE rates increase for 2010.

Headlines for Friday, August 7, 2009

DNU Flash - Headlines from around the fleet: President Barack Obama discusses post traumatic stress with Secretary of Veterans Affairs; TRICARE introduces Medical Home concept.

Handicapped Carts

Specialized golf carts are helping wounded warriors get back in the game.

USS Ronald Reagan Dental Division

DNU Flash - USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) dental division maintains oral hygiene of 4,500 Sailors.

New Active Duty Dental Plan Launched August 1

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Active duty service members now have a new dental program that started Aug.1, 2009. The new Active Duty Dental Program (ADDP) becomes the dental care plan for active duty service members (ADSMs) assigned to locations with no access to a military dental facility.

To read the entire news release visit: http://www.tricare.mil/pressroom/news.aspx?fid=547

New Fort Belvoir Hospital

Construction is ongoing at Fort Belvoir for what will be the first joint military hospital located stateside.

Motorcycle Safety

Disabled Jobs Website

A new web site is helping disabled veterans find jobs.

Norfolk Pregnancy Seminar

Naval Station Norfolk hosts a seminar on pregnancy.

Hear the Enemy, Stay Alive

Thursday, June 25, 2009 - MHS

For the first time ever, the Army has deployed audiologists to combat zones, placing them in Iraq and Afghanistan to educate and train troops on hearing protection, and to monitor and treat soldier hearing problems. The influx of hearing experts is part of the new Army Hearing Program (formerly known Army Hearing Conservation), which is being implemented to ensure adequate hearing services are provided to soldiers in all environments, including during pre-and post-deployment operations.

“[Hearing loss] is an invisible injury. You don’t see it, so it’s easily overlooked,” said Col. Kathy E. Gates, audiology consultant for the Army Surgeon General and director of the Army Audiology and Speech Center, at an overview of the Army Hearing Program presented May 21 to a group of military and veterans service organizations. “We are working to raise command awareness of how hearing is a critical sense for soldier survivability and lethality, [through a campaign called] ‘Hear the enemy, stay alive’.”

In 2004, Gates worked with the Office of the Army Surgeon General, Health Policy and Services, and the Proponency Office for Preventive Medicine to institute pre-deployment hearing services for deploying soldiers. In February 2009, policy was changed to include a post-deployment hearing test for all redeploying soldiers. The military’s overall hearing program leadership is now working to expand the role of an audiologist to include operational hearing services in deployed environments, including the battlefield.

Both military and civilian audiologists are supporting the mission. Currently, 30 Army audiologists work in preventive medicine and support AHP. Working with civilian audiologists, who support the direct health care mission and provide clinical or rehabilitative services to eligible beneficiaries, Army audiologists relay the message that “hearing health is critical” to about 324,000 deploying soldiers, who will be routinely exposed to hazardous noise in theater.

A post-deployment health assessment conducted by the Army between March of 2003 and September 2007 concluded that 75 percent of those deployed suffered exposure to extreme noise decibels, and 41 percent experienced vibration. Thirteen percent and 16 percent recorded instances of dizziness and ringing in the ears, respectively. These symptoms are often synonymous with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, and there has been a collaborative effort to merge health care procedures between the Army TBI Multi-Disciplinary Team and Army audiology specialists. A recent report from the VA estimated that nearly 70,000 of the 1.3 million soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are collecting disability for tinnitus, a hearing loss symptom that manifests as a ringing sound in one or both ears. In addition to those suffering from tinnitus, more than 58,000 veterans are currently on disability for hearing loss, costing the VA nearly $805 million annually.

To help prevent hearing loss in the ranks, the Army and Marine Corps have distributed thousands of pairs of the Combat Arms Earplug (CAE), an innovative device designed to block hazardous noise, while still allowing nearly normal hearing. Unfortunately, audiologists and combat veterans say many troops who receive the earplugs either ignore or misuse them due to lack of instruction and training. Efforts are underway to ensure soldiers are provided education, training and fitting of the CAE at Initial Entry Training sites.

But even as troops are trained to use the CAE, the more technologically sophisticated QuietPro is currently being screened for standard use in theater. QuietPro is a digital, lightweight tactical communication headset with built-in, intelligent, high-level hearing protection. The headset provides effective noise reduction of loud blasts while still allowing situational awareness for infantry by letting less harmful combat sounds to come through. The military hopes that the QuietPro device will allow troops more efficient communication during hearing-sensitive tasks like patrol on listening posts, urban warfare, and battlefield commands.

"Soldiers not only want to hear, they want to hear well," Gates said, adding that a QuietPro-type of device both enhances and protects hearing. One of the drawbacks of QuietPro is its price tag: about $600 per unit. The Combat Arms Earplug is $10. The Army Rapid Equipping Force initiative has placed a few thousand QuietPro units in rotation to gauge its overall effectiveness during deployment, and the Marines and Navy are also issuing these particular units.

“The Army is very excited about our road-ahead mission in moving the AHP forward into the 21st Century, where hearing loss is no longer an acceptable by-product of military service," said Gates.

Your Care in MiCare

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Posted by: Health.mil Staff

Today, Col. Keith L. Salzman, M.D., M.P.H., gives an update on the personal health record pilot program going on at Madigan Army Medical Center at Ft. Lewis, Wash. Salzman is Chief, Western Regional Medical Command/ Madigan Army Medical Center Informatics.

It’s been almost 12 months since Madigan Army Medical Center started MiCare to bring the concept of a personal health record (PHR) to military beneficiaries.

Through demonstration projects with industry leaders Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health, we have been able to take personal medical information from the MHS electronic medical record, AHLTA, and put the information in our patients’ hands. Into their own personal health record—the patient owns a copy and controls it. Over 400 patients at Madigan have participated in the MiCare, and they like what they see.

It’s been an important year—and it’s paving the way for DoD to be able to share medical information with our patients in an even more comprehensive way. Here are just a few of the early benefits we are seeing from this demonstration project:

• Patients become partners in their care. Our patients are viewing their lab test results, medication profiles, medical histories and are enabled to be more active participants in managing their medical issues. (The traffic on open accounts is about 10 percent a day).

• PHRs improve the quality of the information in AHLTA. By sharing medical information with our patients, we are also improving our own systems and we’re better prepared for a patient visit. Medication profiles and medical histories can be outdated—when we share our information from the patient, we introduce another quality control check that ensures the information we look at in AHLTA is more current and relevant.

• PHRs improve the provider-patient interaction and compliance. We’re in the early stages of this project, but we are also seeing that patients who use a PHR are asking more questions and becoming more engaged in following their treatment plans.

This is an early report from the field. We have much more to do—more capabilities to add, more technical issues to resolve, and expansion to a larger group of users. But in Year One, we are dealing with the big issues—and focused on the end results: improving the quality of every visit, improving the quality of care, and increasing patient participation in their care.

Greater transparency and sharing between AHLTA and the MiCare PHR has great benefits for our patients and our system. As the country engages in an active debate about the future of our health system, the Military Health System is poised to be a leader in this area.

Our team at Madigan is excited to share the results of this pilot program with others in this system. We don’t have all the answers and don’t even know all the questions. I would like to hear from any of you in the MHS. Where do you think the PHR is directed? What are the most valuable uses of a PHR—for patients and for providers? What bridges should be built between our EHR and a PHR? Please share your thoughts and I will continue to provide MiCare updates over the coming months.

Posted at 2009-06-24 12:59:34 in Technology| Permalink

United We Serve - SecDef

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recognizes volunteers and wounded servicemen and women during "United We Serve" event at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Suicide Prevention

Every military service has a training program geared toward suicide prevention.

Pentagon Health Fair

Living safe and living healthy was the theme of this year's tri-service safety and health fair held Friday in the courtyard of the Pentagon.

Hyperbaric Treatment For TBI

Researchers at San Antonio's Military Medical Center are looking into a new approach for the treatment of traumatic brain injury.

Breast Imaging

Technology developed by the Office of Naval Research is being used now to improve health care for women.

National Intrepid Center

It's been about a year since ground was broken for the new National Intrepid Center of Excellence.