Walter Reed Hospital gets nurses to coordinate services for wounded

Nurses Coordinate Services for Wounded Soldiers
Marc Cantrell
Monday February 11, 2008
When the Washington Post broke the story of substandard housing and roadblocks to appropriate care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in February 2007, it was like an improvised explosive device went off in the military healthcare establishment. The reverberations left few parts of that complex untouched, and they’re still being felt today.

One of the many steps being taken by the Department of Defense (DoD) to ensure wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan receive appropriate and timely care includes the use of nurses and social workers as specialized case managers in military hospitals across the country.

The new case managers, called federal recovery coordinators, are responsible for coordinating care between different health professionals and departments and smoothing out the bureaucratic entanglements that can hinder a veteran’s recovery.

Federal recovery coordinators work closely with clinical and non-clinical case management teams in military hospitals to help develop and execute federal individual recovery plans, according to information from the DoD. The recovery plans specify what services are needed by the servicemember across the continuum of care from recovery through rehabilitation to reintegration to civilian life, according to the DoD. The coordinators work closely with family members to take care of their needs as well.

“Each of the services had already recognized the need for a single point of assistance for the severely injured, ill, and wounded,” says Kristin Day, a licensed clinical social worker and chief consultant of the Care Management and Social Work Service in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Office of Patient Care Services.
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