Naval Hospital becomes training ground for program improvement

Naval Hospital becomes training ground for program improvement
January 25, 2012 10:40 AM
HOPE HODGE - DAILY NEWS STAFF
In October 2010, Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital was the worst in the Navy at returning findings for service members sidelined by wounds, injury or illness in a timely manner. A little more than a year later, officials from distant Marine Corps bases and even other services pay visits to the hospital to learn how to improve their own programs.

All it took, Lt. j.g. Lisa Cook said, was a number of sleepless nights and a different way of seeing things.

The process for wounded, ill, or injured troops deemed potentially unfit for further service is supposed to take a Congress-mandated 295 days from injury to military separation or re-joining a unit. The Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital, like other Navy medical centers, is responsible for 100 of those days: the time it takes to complete a service member’s physical exam and complete medical records and findings so that the service member can continue to receive a VA rating and transition to civilian life or begin re-integration into full-time service. And with the high rate of deployment of Camp Lejeune troops, the Naval Hospital processed 1,200 of these medical boards last year, more than any other naval medical center, including larger centers such as Camp Pendleton and Portsmouth.

Cook, the department head for Patient Administration, arrived at her post a year ago to find a staggering mess. In the office were 989 patient files, each representing a Marine or sailor waiting idle on base while his or her findings were completed. The oldest file was dated 2008.

“They’re in limbo; they don’t know if they can move on with their life, or they’re just sitting around,” Cook said. “You don’t know. ‘Do we move my spouse back home while I wait for my findings; do I not?’ We had members being told ‘This process is going to take 295 days and you’re going to be out,’ and they moved their spouse away so they could just sit here and relax and get better, but a year and a half later, they still have no findings.”
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