Evaluation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services

Evaluation of the Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-03-29

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 0309466601

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Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.

Caring for Veterans and Their Families: A Guide for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals

Caring for Veterans and Their Families: A Guide for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals PDF

Author: Rita F D’Aoust

Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning

Published: 2021-11-08

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 1284171345

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Of the approximately 20 million veterans of the U.S. armed forces, less than half utilize the Veteran's Health Administration health care system. That means the majority of veterans are receiving care from nurses and healthcare professionals who may not be trained in treating or caring for patients who have served in the military. This unique book guides nurses and healthcare professionals through the specific set of needs veterans can present, including but not limited to PTSD. Topics covered include, defining military culture and how to apply that knowledge to provide informed treatment, transitioning from service to civilian life and the many challenges expected during re-adjustment and re-entry, recognizing and treating substance use disorders, identifying suicidal behaviors and warning signs, long-term care for elderly veterans, and many more topics unique to the healthcare of veterans.

The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare

The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare PDF

Author: Suzanne Gordon

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1501714562

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In The Battle for Veterans' Healthcare, award-winning author Suzanne Gordon takes us to the front lines of federal policymaking and healthcare delivery, as it affects eight million Americans whose military service makes them eligible for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) coverage. Gordon’s collected dispatches provide insight and information too often missing from mainstream media reporting on the VHA and from Capitol Hill debates about its future. Drawing on interviews with veterans and their families, VHA staff and administrators, health care policy experts and Congressional decision makers, Gordon describes a federal agency under siege that nevertheless accomplishes its difficult mission of serving men and women injured, in myriad ways, while on active duty. The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare is an essential primer on VHA care and a call to action by veterans, their advocacy organizations, and political allies. Without lobbying efforts and broader public understanding of what’s at stake, a system now functioning far better than most private hospital systems may end up looking more like them, to the detriment of patients and providers alike.

Best Care Anywhere

Best Care Anywhere PDF

Author: Phillip Longman

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2012-03-05

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1609945824

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“An outstanding book . . . documents how the VA’s system of integrative care outperforms the models used by private insurers.” —USW Blog (United Steelworkers) NEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATED Phillip Longman tells the amazing story of the turnaround of the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system from a dysfunctional, scandal-prone bureaucracy into the benchmark for high-quality medicine in the United States. Best Care Anywhere shows that vast swaths of what we think we know about health, health care, and medical economics are just plain wrong. And the book demonstrates how this extraordinarily cost-effective model, which has proven to be highly popular with veterans, can be made available to everyone. New to this edition is an analysis of how the shortcomings of both so-called Obamacare and Republican plans to privatize Medicare reinforce the need for applying the lessons of the VA. Also included are completely updated statistics and research, as well as examples of how the private sector is already beginning to learn from the VA’s example. “Among the most important social policy books published in the last decade.” —Ezra Klein, The Washington Post “Read Best Care Anywhere not just to learn about one of our public health agencies that is a global star in terms of cost effective, evidence-based results, but also to learn how your own health care process can be improved by adopting the Veterans Health Administration’s methodology for transparency and patient-centered care.” —New York Journal of Books

Wounds of War

Wounds of War PDF

Author: Suzanne Gordon

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-10-15

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1501730843

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U.S. military conflicts abroad have left nine million Americans dependent on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for medical care. Their "wounds of war" are treated by the largest hospital system in the country—one that has come under fire from critics in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the nation's media. In Wounds of War, Suzanne Gordon draws on five years of observational research to describe how the VHA does a better job than private sector institutions offering primary and geriatric care, mental health and home care services, and support for patients nearing the end of life. In the unusual culture of solidarity between patients and providers that the VHA has fostered, Gordon finds a working model for higher-quality health care and a much-needed alternative to the practice of for-profit medicine.

Care of Military Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families

Care of Military Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families PDF

Author: Stephen J. Cozza

Publisher: American Psychiatric Pub

Published: 2014-01-23

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1585625310

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Care of Military Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families serves a critical need, which has been highlighted by recent reported rates of combat-related stress disorders and traumatic brain injury, as well as increases in suicide rates among service members and veterans over the past decade and the distress and challenges faced by their children and families. More than 2.5 million Americans currently serve in the U.S. military on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard, and more than 20 million civilians are veterans. Although patients are viewed here in the context of military service, they seek health care in military, veteran, and civilian settings, and their mental health concerns are as diverse as those encountered in the civilian population. This book is designed for clinicians in all care settings and provides thorough coverage of U.S. military structures and cultures across the armed services, as well as detailed material on the particular mental health challenges faced by service members and their families. A full overview of the military lifestyle is provided, including the life cycle of the military (recruitment to retirement), service subcultures (Navy, Army, Marines, Air Force, and Reserve and Guard components), challenges of military life for service members and families (moves, deployments, etc.), and military mental health. Material on military culture provides insight for practitioners who may not be familiar with this population. The book focuses on collaborative care, particularly between the military health care system and the Veterans Administration, providing clinicians with strategies to mitigate stigma and other barriers to care through mental health service delivery in primary care settings. The incidence of traumatic brain injury among service members has increased because of the use of improvised explosive devices, and an entire chapter is devoted to diagnosing and treating these injuries as well as educating patients and their families on the condition. The families of service members face significant challenges, and several chapters are devoted to the needs of military children, the families of ill and injured service members and veterans, deployment-related care, and caring for the bereaved. The book's comprehensive review of resources available to military service members, veterans, and families both ensures high-quality care and reduces the workload for treating physicians. Care of Military Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families is an authoritative and much-needed addition to the mental health literature.

Burdens of War

Burdens of War PDF

Author: Jessica L. Adler

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2017-07-19

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1421422875

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In the World War I era, veterans fought for a unique right: access to government-sponsored health care. In the process, they built a pillar of American social policy. Burdens of War explores how the establishment of the veterans’ health system marked a reimagining of modern veterans’ benefits and signaled a pathbreaking validation of the power of professionalized institutional medical care. Adler reveals that a veterans’ health system came about incrementally, amid skepticism from legislators, doctors, and army officials concerned about the burden of long-term obligations, monetary or otherwise, to ex-service members. She shows how veterans’ welfare shifted from centering on pension and domicile care programs rooted in the nineteenth century to direct access to health services. She also traces the way that fluctuating ideals about hospitals and medical care influenced policy at the dusk of the Progressive Era; how race, class, and gender affected the health-related experiences of soldiers, veterans, and caregivers; and how interest groups capitalized on a tense political and social climate to bring about change. The book moves from the 1910s—when service members requested better treatment, Congress approved new facilities and increased funding, and elected officials expressed misgivings about who should have access to care—to the 1930s, when the economic crash prompted veterans to increasingly turn to hospitals for support while bureaucrats, politicians, and doctors attempted to rein in the system. By the eve of World War II, the roots of what would become the country’s largest integrated health care system were firmly planted and primed for growth. Drawing readers into a critical debate about the level of responsibility America bears for wounded service members, Burdens of War is a unique and moving case study. -- Jennifer D. Keene, Chapman University, author of Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America

Description and Analysis of the VA National Formulary

Description and Analysis of the VA National Formulary PDF

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2000-10-03

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0309183537

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The VA National Formulary generated controversy, which motivated congressional scrutiny and a directive to the VA to commission this report reviewing the experience with the National Formulary and formulary system. This Institute of Medicine committee was pleased to assist the Congress with this review, in part because the committee saw in the VHA example an opportunity to understand and anticipate problems that all publicly funded programs are likely to encounter in this new age of pharmaceuticals. The Congress asked the committee to review the restrictiveness of the National Formulary, its impact on the costs and quality of care in the VHA, and how it compared to formularies and drug management practices in the private sector and in other public programs, especially Medicaid. Detailed in the pages that follow, the committee's findings and conclusions on these questions are, the committee believes, highly instructive, though not always in the ways that we anticipated.