ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

The Army Reserve is taking a lesson from building a medical reserve force as it looks for tech-savvy talent to fill critical new jobs.

The best, most competent medical professionals available who don’t need training were found at little or no cost to the Army Reserve in private practice, and the private sector is now where the Army Reserve is looking for highly skilled professionals in technology, Chief of Army Reserve Lt. Gen. Charles D. Luckey said recently during a breakfast hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

Army medical treatment facilities have a 93 percent satisfaction rate with soldiers, retirees and families, according to a 2017 outpatient survey.

The Army News Service reports the Joint Outpatient Experience Survey, the JOES, also shows 83 percent are satisfied with access to care and 78 percent are pleased with Army pharmacies.

Facing a Congress that wants to push Pentagon reforms, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is trying to slow things down, especially when it comes to an overhaul of the military medical system that could strip the Army of its control over some of its own hospitals.

Cutting-edge science and technology projects such as mind-controlled prosthetic devices, high-energy lasers and autonomous aerial ambulances.

Robotics, unmanned ground and aerial systems, and intelligent equipment are potential solutions to working in future congested battlefields.

Compressed and converged battlefields of the future could lead to significant casualties and limited abilities to medically evacuate the injured.

“We are a great health organization but we are Army medicine,” she said. “Nobody else can provide the size, the scope, the scale and the speed.”

The Army has more than 450 providers in 62 embedded behavioral health teams to treat soldiers earlier and treat them without hospitalization when possible.

An Army Medical Symposium and Exposition will be hosted in San Antonio on July 24 and 25 by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

The theme for the event is Army Medicine: A Century of Premier Expeditionary and Globally Integrated Innovation From the Trenches to Multi-Domain Battle.

The two-day event will be held in the Grand Hyatt Hotel on San Antonio’s River Walk.

April 13, 2017

The Army is seeing success in treating behavioral health issues in soldiers, with fewer inpatient hospitalizations and fewer prescriptions for potentially addictive benzodiazepines as treatment.

Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West credits an early intervention program, Embedded Behavioral Health, for improvements. “Army Medicine has leaned far forward,” she said of the program that has 62 teams made up of 450 providers in direct support of 31 brigade combat teams and 156 other battalion- or brigade-sized units.