Injured Women’s Veterans Study Provides Insight and Improvement in AW2 Advocate Care...

By MAJ Faith Junghahn, AW2 Executive Officer
This past year, I had the amazing opportunity to present my graduate degree research study, Transitional Lifecycle Case Management for Injured Women Veterans Assigned to the Army Wounded Warrior Program (AW2), at the 117th Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS) Karen A. Rieder Research/Federal Nursing Poster Session.
My graduate research was a quality improvement review; a study focused on improving current practice standards. Based on the prescribed Comprehensive Transition Plan (CTP) non-medical case management categories AW2 Advocates reviewed of the women Veterans assigned to AW2 at the time intervals of six, 12, and 24 months during the woman Veteran’s transition and reintegration phases.
For my audit, I designed a logic model based on the Total Force Fitness and Donabedian’sModel of Quality, entitled the “Transitional Lifecycle Case Management Model.” Using this model provides a unique way of trending the non-medical needs Soldiers and their Families in defining their path towards independence. Having the model allows for the command and supervisors to report data to leadership and supporting entities in order to best market and obtain resources focused on the Soldier and their Families.
The purpose of the audit was to begin to understand quantitatively and qualitatively-identified transitional care gaps, as delineated by the CTP prescribed non-clinical case management categories, and injured women Veterans’ experiences assigned to AW2 during their transition from the Army to Veteran status.
My study identified a transitional care gap in the non-medical case management category “care coordination”. The gap noticed was in the AW2 Advocate establishing local networks of non-profit and community services that willingly assist medically retired Veterans reintegrating into their communities. I already had an awareness of this gap through my work with AW2, and the findings of my quality improvement study led me to develop an online WTC Resource Center with the assistance of the WTC G-6 SharePoint team and WTC Strategic Communications.
My team designed the resource page using the study model based on the six domains of the CTP: physical, emotional, social, Family, spiritual, and career. The transitional lifecycle case management model aligns the non-clinical case management categories to one on the six CTP domains. The resources are classified using CTP non-clinical categories and listed under the respective CTP domain.
My research and conclusions have demonstrated an unmet need to increase the availability and visibility of warrior care resources and information for severely wounded Veterans, especially women. The WTC Resource Center is structured aligning the resources and information under the comprehensive transition plan’s six domains. When establishing the individualized plan for identified CTP categories, the nurse case manager, squad leader, or AW2 Advocate can quickly discover those community resources closest to the Soldier that have reputably supported medically-retired Veterans’ path to independence within each respective domain.
As Soldiers, Veterans, and Families move from rehabilitation from injuries to reintegration into communities, they will most likely need a particular resource for a short time to meet a specific need. The long-term value of the resource or information resides in both the WTC Warrior Resource Center expanding to list a local network of support accessible by the Triad of Care and AW2 Advocates at military and Veteran facilities across the nation and overseas.

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Perhaps Ma'am you could have your AW2 Advocates start a data base. When they call there clients (soldiers),
they could ask if anyone had reach out to the community and received some local assistance and if so what
agency or group was it and who was the contact person they worked with. AW2 could then send a Thank-You card or a certificate saying Thank-You. Then AW2 starts fostering meaningful realationships and a data base
for future soldiers and you start your clients (soldiers) thinking about local resources that may offer some kind
of assistance. I see it as a WIN/WIN situation.......:D
 
Perhaps Ma'am you could have your AW2 Advocates start a data base. When they call there clients (soldiers),
they could ask if anyone had reach out to the community and received some local assistance and if so what
agency or group was it and who was the contact person they worked with. AW2 could then send a Thank-You card or a certificate saying Thank-You. Then AW2 starts fostering meaningful realationships and a data base
for future soldiers and you start your clients (soldiers) thinking about local resources that may offer some kind
of assistance. I see it as a WIN/WIN situation.......:D

Dear Ma'am:

As a recently discharged female Soldier from the CB-WTU system, I would suggest the Commanders understand the importance of implementing any program that gets designed.

My transition assistance was a joke! Didn't exist. I cobbled my own resources. There was never a time where I received an assessment for services, etc., from CB-WTU. I did get an email once that had about 50 web page links to various and sundry organizations - and even those links were all lumped in together as to their locale of help (if I didn't live in California, I still got the link). This was just some Platoon Sergeant's "checking the block" type of notification.

Unacceptable.

So Ma'am, I am grateful to read you are pro-active in seeking improvement.

Please keep ALL of us in your data loop - even though PDRL discharged - I am still in need of good contacts.

v/r,
nwlivewire
 
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