Obama Signs Bill to Help Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Victims WASHINGTON—President Obama has signed a bill that will make health care available to veterans and their families who were affected by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune over a 30 year period. The bill was passed as part of the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 and approves VA medical coverage for certain illnesses to veterans and their families who served at Camp Lejeune between 1957 and 1987. Under the bill, VA will be the “payer of last resort” for family members. More
Panetta: Transitioning Troops from Military Service Will “Overwhelm” System WASHINGTON—With more troops expected to return home after a decade of war, the government’s ability to care for veterans will be strained, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress recently. “This system is going to be overwhelmed. Let’s not kid anybody,” he said. “We are looking at a system that is already overwhelmed.” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Panetta made a joint appearance on Capitol Hillrecently where they took questions from two House committees on a range of issues facing troops transitioning to the civilian sector. More
Walgreens, Express Scripts Resolve Contract Dispute; TRICARE Effect Unclear WASHINGTON—Walgreens and Express Scripts, the company that manages TRICARE’s pharmacy benefit, have resolved their contract dispute. The new agreement will bring Walgreens back into the Express Scripts pharmacy network. What this means for TRICARE beneficiaries, however, was not immediately clear. In a statement TRICARE said “the impact on TRICARE of a new retail pharmacy agreement between Express Scripts, Inc., (ESI) and Walgreens pharmacy has not yet been determined.” More
WASHINGTON — With military suicides averaging nearly one a day this year, DoD and VA leaders are grappling to develop better ways to identify servicemembers and veterans who are at risk for taking their own lives and determine what prompts them to take such desperate action. One effort, discussed at a recent conference about the issue, is creating a data repository that will help mental-health experts better analyze suicides and suicide attempts “to spot trends and to get ahead of that,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. More
SAN ANTONIO — The Military Health System is winning some key battles, but the outcome of the war against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is still in question. That’s according to a new DoD analysis of more than 9 million servicemembers and TRICARE beneficiaries. In a report published recently in JAMA, researchers found that the rates of both community- and hospital-onset bacteremia decreased from 2005 to 2010. Skin and soft-tissue infections (SSTI) caused by MRSA also declined but later in the period than bacteremia. More
Dallas VAMC Tests Wireless Monitoring of Vital Signs; Rollout Possible DALLAS — The ability for VA hospitals to remotely track the vital signs of patients has been around for longer than a decade, but it always has been limited by cost and technology. Patients who need remote monitoring were relegated to specific areas of the hospital where that service was available. But a new system recently employed at the Dallas VAMC may mean that the hospital will be able to track patients throughout an entire facility using the hospital’s existing wireless Internet network. More
Patient at the National Military Hospital in Kabul
WASHINGTON — U.S. personnel have been placed in an “impossible situation,” serving as medical mentors at a corrupt Afghan hospital where patient neglect and abuse took place, a House member concluded at a recent hearing. Congress members are seeking explanations after allegations of mismanagement and patient abuse at a U.S.-funded hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. One military official called the conditions at the hospital “Auschwitz-like.” More
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” – John Naisbitt
Editor-in-Chief, Chester ‘Trip’ Buckenmaier III, MD, COL, MC, USA
I like seeing U.S .Medicine in my mailbox. For me, it is akin to a life ring in a sea of discordant information that seems to have an overpowering undertow which is sucking me under its overwhelming mass. I find it difficult to explain to my children, who have not experienced a world without the Internet, the dramatic change in how information is packaged, presented and utilized. So much of my professional and private life is centered on managing the vast amounts of information thrust upon me. More
