Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 7-30-09

What’s Inside Today’s Local News for Veterans

1. Obama, Shinseki To Mark Implementation Of New GI Bill.  
2. Dunne: VA Not Ready To Back Extra Pay For Lost Quality-Of-Life.  
3. Shinseki Asked To Expand Agent Orange Illnesses List.  
4. Shinsekis Read To US Military Children.  
5. DeBakey VAMC, City Of Houston Organize Welcome Home Event For Veterans.  
6. US Army To Include Anti-Stress Program In Basic Training Regimen.  
7. Iraq Vet’s Case Offers New Hope To Amputees.  
8. Veteran Survivor Benefits Law In Louisiana Seen As Too Narrow.  
9. Retired Veterans Offer Volunteer Services At VA Clinic In Arizona.
10.  While Discussing Healthcare Reform, Lawmakers, Physician Praise VA System.

1.      Obama, Shinseki To Mark Implementation Of New GI Bill.   The Richmond Times-Dispatch (7/31, Cain, 167K) reports, "President Barack Obama will join Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., former Sen. John W. Warner and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki on Monday at George Mason University to mark the implementation of Webb’s Post-9/11 GI Bill." On Saturday, meanwhile, the VA "will begin distributing tuition payments to schools participating in the program."
      The AP (7/31), which says Obama "will attend a rally" Monday "at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., in celebration" of the new GI Bill, reports, "Keith M. Wilson, education service director at the VA, said agency officials are working with Congress on solutions to potential problems" with the new benefits, "but the agency overall feels good about its ability to execute" them. A separate AP (7/31) story notes that David Rehbein, the "national commander of the American Legion," is praising the new GI Bill, which former President George W. Bush "signed it into law last year.

2.      Dunne: VA Not Ready To Back Extra Pay For Lost Quality-Of-Life.   In his syndicated "Military Update" column, appearing in Stars And Stripes (7/31), Tom Philpott writes, "Monthly compensation that the Department of Veterans Affairs pays to veterans with service-connected disabilities is intended to replace average earnings loss due to their injuries or ailments. But should VA also pay disabled veterans something extra for diminished quality of life?" In 2007, two "prominent commissions…said that it should," but on Wednesday, "a senior VA official told senators that the department isn’t prepared yet to endorse a qualify-of-life payment, or to make any other significant change to disability compensation. ‘There’s more information that’s needed, and…more discussion that needs to take place with many experts, before we are prepared to say yes or no on any of those recommendations,’ said Patrick W. Dunne, under secretary for benefits in VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration." The issue was brought up by US Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, "in a hearing on a different topic: What VA is doing to speed the processing of a rising number of disability claims." Burr "urged Dunne to consult with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, and then tell Congress ‘what the next step should be.’"

3.      Shinseki Asked To Expand Agent Orange Illnesses List.   Military.com (7/31, Jordan) reports, "Armed with the latest study from the Institute of Medicine, Vietnam Veterans of America is petitioning" Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki "to add three illnesses…to the long list of deadly or debilitating ailments that have been linked to Agent Orange exposure. The outreach is the latest in a long fight between some Vietnam veterans’ organizations" and the US "government to connect a wider range of ailments to the chemical defoliant used throughout the conflict to strip away the enemy’s jungle sanctuaries. ‘With the body of scientific evidence that currently exists, as well as [your] authority to take immediate action through administrative rulemaking, VVA believes that there is now no factual or legal impediment to presumptive service connection for ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and Parkinson’s disease,’ wrote John Rowan, national president of VVA, in a July 27 letter to Shinseki." VA spokesman Jim Benson "said the agency has formed a working group to review the Institute’s findings and will make recommendations to Shinseki when it is finished."

4.      Shinsekis Read To US Military Children.   Washington, DC’s Bolling Aviator (7/31, Alfred) reports, "United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, and his wife, Patricia, read to more than 100 children from Bolling Air Force Base, Anacostia Naval Annex and Fort Myer youth programs July 27" at the US Department of Education’s Plaza in Washington, DC. The "readings marked the start of the ‘Read to the Top’ activity that was initiated" by US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan "in response to President Barack Obama’s call to everyone to perform an act of community service pursuant to the ‘United We Serve’ campaign." The "’Read to the Top’ program runs from July 27 until Aug. 4, which is Education Week this year."

5.      "Miracle Machine" Giving Hope To Disabled Vets.   On its website, WAGT-TV Augusta, GA (7/30, Forghani) said, "New technology is giving men and women a second chance at walking." The Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center "is the only VA hospital in the southeast that’s equipped with a new tool to help active duty servicemen and veterans with spinal cord injuries." The Lokomat, a $300,000 "miracle machine," suspends patients "in a harness over a treadmill. Then the frame of the robot, attached by straps to the legs, moves the legs in walking motion." John Rice, a Lokomat patient, explained that it sends a "signal from your brain…to the rest of your body to move and how to move." WAGT noted that Alison Chestang, a physical therapist, also commented on the Lokomat, saying, "There’s nothing like giving hope to

someone who doesn’t have it and isn’t aware of what they can do and showing them it’s not going to limit their life."

6.      US Army To Include Anti-Stress Program In Basic Training Regimen.   The AP (7/31, Schafer) reports the US Army’s "top general says basic training will soon include" an anti-stress program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, which is "part of a broader effort to help soldiers deal with the aftereffects of combat and prevent suicides." On Thursday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey "told reporters during a visit to inspect training" at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, "that the new program will begin Oct. 1." The program is "necessary, the general said, given the Army’s pace of wartime deployments, which he called ‘the treadmill we’ve been on for eight years,’ and one that will continue ‘for some time to come.’"
      Access To Routine Medical Care A Problem For Army.   USA Today (7/31, Zoroya, 2.29M) reports the number of US Army "medical centers and clinics that provide timely access to routine medical care has hit a five-year low, Army records show, often forcing soldiers and their families to seek treatment off base." Approximately "16% of Army patients, particularly family members, can’t get appointments with their primary physicians and are sent to doctors off the installation, according to the results of a nine-month Army review finished late last year." USA Today adds, "Army records show that 26 of its medical centers, hospitals and clinics are unable to meet the Pentagon standard requiring that 90% of patients get routine care appointments within seven days. Those are the worst results since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." This year, however, "the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, authorized 12 medical facilities with the worst access problems to hire more primary care doctors, says Col. Ken Canestrini, who’s in charge of improving access to health care for soldiers and their families."

7.      VA Hospital In Colorado Operating Women Veterans Health Clinic.   The Grand Junction (CO) Free Press (7/31, Sullivan, 15K) says that because women are enlisting in the US Armed Forces "in record numbers," the US Department of Veterans Affairs "is encouraging more women-centered care in its hospitals," including the VA medical center in Grand Junction, which now operates a Women Veterans Health Clinic. According to the Free Press, the clinic’s "all-female, three-person" staff "serves as ‘watchdogs’ to ensure women receive the care and comfort they need – including private rooms, clothes or gowns that fit patients properly, and a caregiver specifically familiar with women’s health issues."

8.      Veteran Survivor Benefits Law In Louisiana Seen As Too Narrow.   The New Orleans Times-Picayune (7/30, Anderson, 178K) reported, "A state law that pays $250,000 to the survivors of Louisiana National Guard troops killed on duty in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2007 should be expanded to include all state Guard members killed since those conflicts began, the chairman of a special Senate committee said Wednesday." State Sen. Robert Adley, a Vietnam veteran, "said he has called a meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Veterans Affairs for Sept. 11 to discuss how the existing law might be changed." He "said he also expects details from state Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson and National Guard officials on how the law can be changed, and how many applications for benefits have been received and paid out."

9.      Retired Veterans Offer Volunteer Services At VA Clinic In Arizona.   In a story on volunteer efforts of retired veterans at the "Southeast Extension Clinic" of the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Arizona’s East Valley Tribune (7/31, Bowser) reports, "Eric Guyton, a medical administration officer at the clinic, said retired veterans are their lifeblood. ‘They are able to do the things that would be difficult if we had to do them ourselves,’ Guyton said of the retirees, many of whom live in the East Valley and use the clinic, as well." Guyton "said the assistance was needed, especially with swelling numbers of Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans returning home in need of vital mental and physical health services."

10.    Pentagon "Scrambling" To Fund EHR Interoperability Efforts.   Government Health IT (7/31, Buxbaum) reports, "The Pentagon Comptroller is scrambling to find funds the Department of Defense can reprogram toward joint DoD/Department of Veterans Affairs efforts to develop a service-oriented architecture (SOA)" that will "promote interoperability between their two systems" of electronic health records (EHRs), according to a "report released on July 24, by the House Appropriations Committee analyzing the provisions of the proposed fiscal year 2010 Defense budget." The "committee directed the Secretary of Defense to report to the appropriations committees of both houses of Congress by September 14, 2009, on the availability of funding for the SOA."
      GAO: Interagency Program Management A Problem For VA, DoD.   In continuing coverage, a separate Government Health IT (7/30, Mosquera) article noted that the DoD and the VA "have met some objectives for making their health IT systems interoperable by a Sept. 30 deadline, but are lagging in their efforts to establish interagency program management, GAO said in a July 28 report." The "departments are trying to share information between their primary EHR systems: VA’s Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), which was developed in-house by VA clinicians and IT personnel, and DOD’s AHLTA, which is composed of multiple legacy systems developed from commercial software products that were customized for specific uses." Federal Computer Weekly (7/31, Lipowicz), which publishes a similar story, notes that according to the GAO, VA and DoD "officials generally agreed" with the report’s findings.