scholarly journals “We Want to Build a Network”: Professional Experiences of Case Managers Working With Military Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2333794X1986978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Englert ◽  
Renee Dell’Acqua ◽  
Shannon Fitzmaurice ◽  
Abigail Marter Yablonsky

Optimizing case management (CM) services increases service member readiness at home and abroad. However, little research has been conducted on the experiences of case managers providing services to military families within the Military Health System. Semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the professional experiences of case managers to identify factors that may affect care to military families. A total of 53 case managers from military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) varying in size, location, and branch of service were interviewed by telephone to explore their perspectives. Qualitative content analysis was performed. Case managers serve a variety of functions, but specific roles vary between MTFs. Factors that affect CM services for military families were identified: (1) need for pediatric specialization, (2) heavy workload, (3) appropriate staff, (4) patient handoffs, and (5) the role of CM. Recommendations for improving CM services to facilitate the well-being of military families are discussed.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Saskia Hanft-Robert ◽  
Nadine Janis Pohontsch ◽  
Cornelia Uhr ◽  
Alexander Redlich ◽  
Franka Metzner

<b><i>Background:</i></b> The therapeutic alliance is considered to be one of the most important factors of psychotherapy and is a necessary requirement for a successful treatment in interpreter-mediated psychotherapy. <b><i>Patients and Methods:</i></b> Using interpreter-mediated guided interviews, 10 refugee patients who experienced interpreter-mediated psychotherapy were asked about factors influencing the development of a trusting therapeutic alliance in the triad. The analysis of the interviews followed the rules of content-structuring qualitative content analysis. <b><i>Results:</i></b> A total of 11 factors were identified which could be assigned to the interpreter, therapist, or patient. In the analysis, the central role of the interpreter in establishing a therapeutic alliance in the triad became particularly clear. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Consideration of the factors that, from the patients’ perspective, influence the establishment and maintenance of a trusting alliance within the triad, as well as the recommendations for action derived from this for psychotherapists and interpreters can lead to an improvement in the therapeutic treatment of refugees.


2021 ◽  
pp. bmjmilitary-2020-001740
Author(s):  
Erin G Lawrence ◽  
N Jones ◽  
N Greenberg ◽  
N T Fear ◽  
S Wessely ◽  
...  

Organisations including the United Kingdom Armed Forces should seek to implement mental health interventions to increase the psychological well-being of their workforce. This editorial briefly presents ten key principles that military forces should consider before implementing such interventions. These include job-focused training; evaluating interventions; the use of internal versus external training providers; the role of leaders; unit cohesion, single versus multiple session psychological interventions; not overgeneralising the applicability of interventions; the need for repeated skills practice; raising awareness and the fallibility of screening.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel T Olatunbosun ◽  
Ayodeji F Alaketu ◽  
Joseph H McDermott ◽  
Al M Elsayed von Bayreuth

ABSTRACT Insulinoma, the prototype of endogenous hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia, is a very rare condition, with an incidence of four cases per million person-years. Its rate of occurrence in the U.S. military population is unknown. Two cases of insulinomas involving active duty service members have been published. However, there has been no reported case of an insulinoma in a deployed service member. We report the case of a 21-year-old infantryman with clinical hypoglycemia of insidious onset, manifesting with overt neuroglycopenic symptoms during his deployment as a combatant soldier, and the ultimate diagnosis of an insulinoma as the underlying cause. The series of multiple clinical evaluations and the unique circumstances leading to the formal evaluation of the patient’s hypoglycemia and treatment are chronicled. The significance of neuroglycopenia and the diagnostic approach to any suspected case of hypoglycemia, the potential challenges and opportunities, and educational aspects of evaluation and management of the insulinoma are elaborated. The potential role of the Military Health System in facilitating the detection and treatment of this rare condition in the service member is discussed as well.


Author(s):  
Heather Tick ◽  
Eric B. Schoomaker

This chapter discusses some of the assumptions behind the evolution of the current program of pain care and explores different strategies that could inform transformative changes to the system. It addresses the role of self-care, nutrition, mind-body strategies, and movement in improving function. The emerging scientific literature on neuroplasticity, central and peripheral sensitization, energy generation, and mitochondrial dysfunction, and the functional role of fascia is explored. Health providers in a transformed system will potentially work in more diverse settings, collaborate more broadly, and engage patients in conversations driven by patient priorities and emerging evidence-based modalities. The Veterans Health Administration and the Military Health System, acting on alarming increases in the incidence of chronic pain and associated comorbidities, have become the early adopters of transformative policies. Since pain is the most common cause for a healthcare visit, this chapter should be of interest to all healthcare providers, complementary, integrative, and conventional.


2020 ◽  
Vol 185 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
John J Melton ◽  
Jeffrey W Quick

ABSTRACT The transition of authority to manage and administer all DoD Medical Treatment Facilities from the Military Department Services to the Defense Health Agency is an extremely complex challenge involving multiple stakeholders and systems in an effort to achieve greater force readiness while reducing cost. Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg served as the U.S. Army’s sole prototype for the initial phase of the transition of authority. Starting with a foundational shift to an organizational outward mindset was essential in building effective relationships to exercise Mission Command at echelon to manage risks to mission during this period of uncertainty and ambiguity. This shift in mindset set the conditions for mobilizing Army Doctrine, elicited, and invited collaborative behaviors, and resulted in the improved organizational performance accomplished with velocity to successfully lead the transformation to Defense Health Agency.


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Helena de Castro Santos ◽  
Ulysses Tavares Teixeira

Everyone knows that democracy played a role in the Bush Doctrine. What not everyone knows is that this role was essential for the doctrine to be put into operation under which the Iraq invasion was prepared and launched. We argue moreover that, even if aggressive, the Bush doctrine is compatible with the American Liberal Tradition. To demonstrate these arguments we analyze the links between democracy, security, and the US national interests as expressed in the pillars of the American foreign policy since the end of Cold War. The consequential belief of the Bush Administration on the positive effect of exporting democracy by the use of force to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight terrorism will be remarked. It will be shown, however, that in the first years of the Bush Administration, among the justifications for the military interventions in the two countries, security reasons prevailed over democratic concerns, although the latter was significantly present since the early hours after September 11. It was only when it became clear that WMDs did not exist in Iraq that the exporting of democracy as the ultimate weapon to fight terrorism grew remarkably and prevailed over security reasons to invade those rogue states. The paper uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the speeches of President Bush and his Secretaries of State and Defense.


Author(s):  
Lindsay Prior

In this chapter, the focus is on ways in which content analysis can be used to investigate and describe interview and textual data. The chapter opens with a contextualization of the method and then proceeds to an examination of the role of content analysis in relation to both quantitative and qualitative modes of social research. Following the introductory sections, four kinds of data are subjected to content analysis. These include data derived from a sample of qualitative interviews (N = 54), textual data derived from a sample of health policy documents (N = 6), data derived from a single interview relating to a “case” of traumatic brain injury, and data gathered from 54 abstracts of academic papers on the topic of “well-being.” Using a distinctive and somewhat novel style of content analysis that calls upon the notion of semantic networks, the chapter shows how the method can be used either independently or in conjunction with other forms of inquiry (including various styles of discourse analysis) to analyze data, and also how it can be used to verify and underpin claims that arise out of analysis. The chapter ends with an overview of the different ways in which the study of “content”—especially the study of document content—can be positioned in social scientific research projects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (6) ◽  
pp. 1282-1299
Author(s):  
Nitzan Rothem ◽  
Eyal Ben-Ari

This article addresses the complementary work of psychological notions and courts in handling suicides occurring in the course of military service. We suggest the category of mutuality between individuals and social settings as an analytic perspective for the study of suicide, illuminating not only how suicide is constructed, but also theorizing the effects of this construction. Our findings rest on content analysis of 34 verdicts on cases of suicide occurring within the Israeli military. In these verdicts, mostly issued to resolve disputes between bereaved parents and state authorities, Israeli courts decided on the causes of death and the responsibilities of the military and state for soldiers’ suicides. Courts base their decisions on the ambiguous psychological concept of suicidal individuals, explaining self-demise as the result of an internal malaise and avoid addressing the coercive circumstances within which Israeli soldiers operate. By conclusively linking self-demise to suicidality, courts produce an idea of death-seeking soldiers, who fail to ensure their own well-being as well as to defend the common good. Courts render the difficulties encountered during military service mental and personal, thereby contracting, standardizing, and individualizing the idea of mutuality between soldiers, families, and state. To explain these repercussions of juridification and psychologization processes, we draw attention to Durkheim’s conceptualization of contractual obligations and non-contractual sentiments. We elaborate on the Durkheimian connection between solidarity and suicide, by highlighting the outcomes of their interrelated management, especially the courts’ shaping of thin mutuality when arbitrating suicide disputes. Adopting psychological reasoning and assessing personal responsibility, courts potentially fail in their constitutive role of discussing matters of collective concerns.


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