Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 4-17-09

What’s Inside Today’s Local News for Veterans

1. VA To Digitize Paper Forms.  
2. Gulf War Vet Seen As Potential VA Nominee.  
3. VA, Western Carolina University Form Nursing Partnership. .  
4. As US Military Suicides Rise, VA Singled Out For Criticism.  
5. Article Says Brain Injuries Are Overdiagnosed In US Troops.  
6. Vets Rally To Keep VA Hospital In Iowa Open.  
7. Iraq Vet Demonstrates Power Knee.  
8. Some New Orleans Residents Angered By VA Hospital Meeting’s Format.  
9. Latham: VA Will Soon Be Requesting Bids For New VA Clinic.  
10. Alexandria VAMC Celebrating Medical Librarians’Day. 

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HAVE YOU HEARD?
Secretary of the Army Pete M. Geren honored the nation’s oldest living Army veteran, 110-year-old Gertrude Noone, at her nursing home residence in Milford, Conn., last month with a special induction ceremony for seven new Army recruits. Noone is Connecticut’s second-oldest resident, and as far as anyone knows she is the nation’s oldest living veteran. The VA Records Management Center in St. Louis verified her service dates in the Women’s Army Corps from September 1, 1943 – June 3, 1949. She was stationed in Tennessee and worked in a dispensary, leaving the Army with the rank of sergeant first class. Noone was born in Ansonia, Conn., in 1898, one of 10 children. Her parents and grandparents had emigrated from England. Her five sisters became teachers and nurses, but Noone was drawn to the business world. She went to work for Travelers Insurance after graduating from high school and, after her Army service, worked as a hospital secretary until her retirement in 1962.

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1.      VA To Digitize Paper Forms.   NextGov (4/17, Brewin) reports, "The Veterans Benefits Administration, which has stored tens of millions of pages" in veterans’ files, "closed a fast-track procurement on Wednesday that will digitize the paper forms to improve the way it processes and manages benefits." The contract, "valued by industry sources at more than $150 million," is "part of a push by Eric Shinseki, secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, who said at his January confirmation hearing that he wanted to make the department as ‘paperless as possible.’" NextGov says the VA "intends to award the contract to one bidder as a broad purchase agreement on a General Services Administration contract."

2.      Gulf War Vet Seen As Potential VA Nominee.   In his "What’s Brewin’" blog for NextGov (4/16), Bob Brewin wrote, "I’m picking up strong signals" that the Obama Administration "may tap Dr. Stephen Ondra, professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, as the new under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration." Brewin continued, "I hear that Ondra," a Gulf War vet, has "already…started work" for the VA "as a senior policy advisor to Secretary Eric Shinseki, and his nomination as under secretary for health will come real soon now. If, tapped, Ondra will replace" Dr. Michael Kussman, a Bush Administration "holdover who announced his resignation this month in the wake of the collapse of the eight-year-old, $167 million project to develop a core computer application to schedule patient appointments at VA hospitals." The VA "is supposed to give me an update on plans to replace that patient scheduling system anytime now, one of a mess of unanswered queries stacked up at the department like airplanes circling Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in a blizzard."

3.      VA, Western Carolina University Form Nursing Partnership.   In continuing coverage, the Asheville Citizen-Times (4/17) reports a Federal grant "will boost the number of students and faculty in Western Carolina University’s accelerated nursing program to prepare the region for an expected shortage of nurses, officials with WCU" and the Veterans Affairs medical center "in Asheville announced Thursday. The $1.5 million grant" from the US VA "will fund five new faculty positions and add 20 students to WCU’s nursing program each year for the next three years."

4.      As US Military Suicides Rise, VA Singled Out For Criticism.   The Detroit News (4/17, Keenan) reports, "Several branches" of the US military "are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan." Meanwhile, experts "are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an ‘epidemic.’" In addition, survivors "of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing" the Department of Veterans Affairs "of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans’ groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars." The VA "also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped."

5.      Article Says Brain Injuries Are Overdiagnosed In US Troops.   In continuing coverage, the third story in HealthDay’s (4/17) "Health Highlights" column reports mild brain injuries in US troops "are being overdiagnosed, because the Department of Veterans Affairs is using soft criteria instead of hard medical evidence, according to an Army psychiatrist and two other officials, the Associated Press reported." In an article that was "published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Charles Hoge and his two colleagues said many cases of mild brain injury should be called ‘concussions’ rather than ‘brain injuries.’ … The article authors called on the VA to change the way it diagnoses and treats such injuries, the AP reported." But "some veterans groups dispute the suggestion that the military has been overdiagnosing brain injuries."

6.      Vets Rally To Keep VA Hospital In Iowa Open.   On its website, KCCI-TV Des Moines, IA (4/16) "said 75-100 people, mostly veterans," gathered "Wednesday to protest plans to end most services" at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Knoxville, Iowa. The plan, announced by Federal officials last year, "calls for a smaller outpatient facility to remain" in Knoxville, Iowa, "but veterans said that’s not enough to serve the growing number of vets in the area," as "well as those returning from Iraq."

7.      Iraq Vet Demonstrates Power Knee.   On the front page of its Metro section, the Washington Post’s (4/17, Davenport) reports that on Thursday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, disabled Iraq veteran Greg Gadson demonstrated "battery-powered prosthetic legs" known as Power Knees. The "technology behind the Power Knee is the next step in a rapidly changing field that has moved to the forefront of military medicine during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." For the "waves of wounded warriors still streaming home from the battlefield, the legs will offer a chance to recapture a sense of independence, officials said." The Post says Gadson "is the first to try out the prosthetic, which was developed by Ossur, an Icelandic company. Walter Reed officials said they hope the Power Knee will soon be in much wider distribution for soldiers and civilians."

8.      Some New Orleans Residents Angered By VA Hospital Meeting’s Format.   In continuing coverage, the New Orleans Times-Picayune (4/17, Barrow) reports, "A public meeting called to let" the US Department of Veterans Affairs "present design concepts for its proposed…Mid-City" hospital "turned heated Thursday evening when some" of the approximately 150 New Orleans residents in attendance "said the process did not allow adequate public participation. ‘This is a sham,’ longtime activist Brad Ott yelled at moderators, adding that ‘people might as well leave’ because the format did not include an open question-and-answer session. Several people followed his advice, though VA officials remained to take questions one-on-one at various ‘information stations.’" Meanwhile, Julie Catallier, "director of the VA’s southeast Louisiana office, said her agency remains open to criticism of its plans, though she said the decision on the site is settled." The Baton Rouge Advocate (4/17, 11A, Johnson) also notes the meeting.
      New Coordinator Meets With Officials From LSU, VA.   New Orleans Times-Picayune (4/17, Krupa) reports Janet Woodka, who recently "become the third chief of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, which serves as liaison between local governments" and the Federal bureaucracy, is "spending this week getting a handle on major outstanding issues, principal among them ‘resolution on the issue of better’" healthcare for New Orleans, she said. So far this week, Woodka has "met with State Health Secretary Alan Levine," Fred Cerise, vice president for Louisiana State University’s healthcare division, and officials with the US VA. The Times-Picayune notes that current plans "call for the VA and state to build adjacent hospitals" in New Orleans’ Mid-City. 9.      Latham: VA Will Soon Be Requesting Bids For New VA Clinic.   The Decorah (IA) Journal (4/17, Strandberg) reports that during a forum he held "Tuesday morning at Luther College’s Farwell Hall," US Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) "provided an update on the community based outpatient clinic (CBOC) for veterans, which should be opening in Decorah by the end of 2010. In two weeks, he said" the Department of Veterans Affairs "would be sending out a request for bids for space the VA could lease."

10.    Alexandria VAMC Celebrating Medical Librarians’ Day.   The Alexandria (LA) Town Talk (4/17) reports the Alexandria Veterans Affairs Medical Center "is celebrating Medical Librarians’ Day with an open house on Friday, April 17, from 2 – 4 p.m. in the medical center library, located in Building 2, Room 128, 2495 Shreveport Hwy. 71 North in Pineville." The event "will involve educational offerings, tours of the library, including the new Veterans Computer Area, door prizes and refreshments."