Findings And Recommendations Veteran S Benefits In The United States

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.

Determinants of health - like physical activity levels and living conditions - have traditionally been the concern of public health and have not been linked closely to clinical practice. However, if standardized social and behavioral data can be incorporated into patient electronic health records (EHRs), those data can provide crucial information about factors that influence health and the effectiveness of treatment. Such information is useful for diagnosis, treatment choices, policy, health care system design, and innovations to improve health outcomes and reduce health care costs. Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains and Measures in Electronic Health Records: Phase 2 identifies domains and measures that capture the social determinants of health to inform the development of recommendations for the meaningful use of EHRs. This report is the second part of a two-part study. The Phase 1 report identified 17 domains for inclusion in EHRs. This report pinpoints 12 measures related to 11 of the initial domains and considers the implications of incorporating them into all EHRs. This book includes three chapters from the Phase 1 report in addition to the new Phase 2 material. Standardized use of EHRs that include social and behavioral domains could provide better patient care, improve population health, and enable more informative research. The recommendations of Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains and Measures in Electronic Health Records: Phase 2 will provide valuable information on which to base problem identification, clinical diagnoses, patient treatment, outcomes assessment, and population health measurement.