Fisher House chief: Smash the bureaucracy

[unhappycamper]

Ken Fisher, chairman of the Fisher House Foundation that builds the comfort homes near military and VA medical facilities so families of the wounded can be near them while they recuperate, said that fixes to the health care system for wounded troops and veterans are slowed by delays in staffing, technology and ingrained bureaucratic culture.


Fisher House chief: Smash the bureaucracy
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Oct 2, 2007 16:24:39 EDT

After helping heal hundreds of service members at Fisher House comfort homes across the nation, Ken Fisher said the failures in the health care system for wounded troops and veterans that have been revealed in the wake of the controversy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have both surprised and angered him.

And he’s still mad: As the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs search for solutions, Fisher said they keep stumbling over delays in staffing, technology and ingrained bureaucratic culture.

~snip~

Fisher, chairman of the Fisher House Foundation that builds the comfort homes near military and VA medical facilities so families of the wounded can be near them while they recuperate, recently served on the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, which ultimately recommended more than 40 changes, all but six of which require no congressional action.

One of the most significant recommendations was to provide each seriously injured service member a single case manager to stick with them through the entire process.

Pentagon officials went to Capitol Hill last week with a long list of changes they have already made. But the Government Accountability Office issued a report that said half of the Army’s new Wounded Warrior Brigade, a new organizational structure meant to guide men and women through the disability process — to include assigning case managers — is still only half-staffed.

On the VA side, officials are not even sure how many case managers are needed because no one has come up with a standard definition of “seriously injured.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/military_fishercommission_071002w/



uhc comment: The VA needs a standard definition of “seriously injured”? :wtf: Gimmeafuckingbreak.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Since the republicans want to do away with government and

turn everything over to private companies, do you think they are purposely screwing things up so people will get upset and finally approve of privatization.