In September 2009 I had the pleasure of attending and participating in a conference entitled “OEF/OIF Evolving Paradigms II: The Journey Home” presented by the Veterans in partnership with the DoD and the VA Employee Education System. The purpose of this conference was to provide VA and DoD health care providers and leaders with the information needed to meet the challenges facing veterans, families, and their caregivers with an integrated, multidisciplinary approach.

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GRANTS DESIGNED TO HELP STRENGTHEN THE IT WORKFORCE will be made available through the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency announced last month that $80 million would be allocated, with $70 million going to community college training programs and $10 million to develop educational materials to support those programs.

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WASHINGTON, DC—In the wake of a shooting spree last month at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and dozens injured, federal officials are trying to make sense of the tragedy. One step is piecing together warning signs that may or may not have been...

October 2012 Managing the Complexities of Parkinson Disease: Practical Strategies for the Federal Healthcare Professional1.0  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 veterans have been diagnosed with Parkinson disease (PD), an...

WASHINGTON, DC—The effort to get ahead of the spread of the H1N1 flu epidemic has been a story of two steps forward and one step back, agency leaders told legislators in October. The good news is that the virus has not experienced any wides...

WASHINGTON, DC—Legislators are concerned that a lack of detailed knowledge about the environmental hazards that troops are exposed to during deployment will result in health consequences further down the line. Specifically, they are concerned as to whether DoD is collecting enough data and whether that information, if it exists, is being transferred in a swift and detailed manner to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where it will be useful in the treatment of sick veterans.

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WASHINGTON, DC—Secondhand-smoke exposure increases the risk of coronary heart disease and heart attacks. Smoking bans reduce the risk, according to an Institute of Medicine report commissioned by the CDC. “It’s clear that smoking bans work,” said Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor Lynn Goldman, chair of the committee of experts that wrote the IoM report. “Bans reduce the risks of heart attack in nonsmokers as well as smokers.

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WASHINGTON, DC—The Department of Defense is planning to increase access to mental health services for beneficiaries living in rural areas through telehealth mobile units.

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WASHINGTON, DC—Military and civilian medical facilities are collaborating to improve care and treatment for servicemembers who have sustained major extremity injuries in a newly established extremity trauma research consortium.

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WASHINGTON, DC—Military providers are concerned about how the stress of war may be affecting the mental health of teenagers of military parents. Colonel Kris Peterson, the Army Surgeon General’s Consultant for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Chief of Psychiatry at Madigan Army Medical Center, says studies on military children show that they are experiencing increased anxiety and depression.

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