Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

Veterans!  Here’s your Top 10 News stories of the day compiled from the latest sources

We encourage you to browse our list so that you can take what you want and keep what you need

1. ‘Fake Colonel’ Found Guilty As Charged.  WITN  Michael Hamilton was charged with embezzling $30000 from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, making false official statements, and wearing a uniform and medals he did not receive. The federal jury took about an hour to reach its decision of guilty …

2. U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs opens Technology Acquisition Center in Eatontown.  Asbury Park Press  The US Department of Veterans Affairs was looking to develop a center for its information-technology acquisitions just as the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth was closing. “All this great talent here was looking for another …

3. Surgical Care Improvement Program Hasn’t Improved Key Outcomes.  Internal Medicine News Digital Network  Among the 10 national organizations that are represented on the SCIP steering committee are the American College of Surgeons, the American Hospital Association, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, …

4. Dishonored Americans: That’s All of Us When A Vet Is Left Homeless.  Hartford Courant…Every week, similar groups find veterans living under the bridges in Hartford, Stamford and New Haven. Most are eligible for benefits, but for all kinds of reasons, they don’t apply. The state Department of Veterans Affairs counts 1200 homeless vets in …

5. Those who serve deserve more than just gratitude.  Danbury News Times  One Veterans Affairs official said 700 or more Connecticut veterans are homeless on a given night. That is a shameful number — one that we believe must be addressed with increased dedication. It is incumbent upon federal,

6. First responders prepare for major disasters in airport drill.  9NEWS.com  The US Department of Veterans Affairs, Eastern Colorado Health Care System and community members helped put on a mass-casualty drill at Centennial Airport. The Federal Coordinating Center (FCC) exercise tested responder’s ability to treat and transport …

7. Veterans Affairs mobile office to visit Pratt.  Pratt Tribune  … Office will be located at the Pratt Walmart parking lot from 9 am to 6 pm Thursday, April 21, and 8 am to 4 pm Friday, April 22, to assist eligible veterans and family members in obtaining benefits from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). …

8. P1.3-B vets office here, only facility outside US.  Inquirer.net  By Monday, Filipino and American war veterans were welcomed at the new United States Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) office on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City, all on schedule for their claims and medical appointments at a new one-stop shop manned …

9. Flow of veterans’ medical records streamlined.  The Virginian-Pilot  By Bill Sizemore Tim Cromwell’s father-in-law, a Korean War veteran, gets some of his health care from the US Department of Veterans Affairs and some from the private sector. As he shuttles between the two, his wife lugs his medical records around in a …

10. Disabled veterans deserve a place to park.  Roanoke Times  It broke more bones in his body than not, and since 1970 he’s been a fully disabled veteran. Now 63, Hambrick remembers well his six or so visits to the US Department of Veterans Affairs regional office back in 2009, after 11 months of treatment for …

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Joining Forces With Military and Veteran Families

On April 12, The White House announced Joining Forces, a community–based effort to help lessen the burden on our military and Veteran families. And VA has joined to help.
Learn how on VAntage Point

IN OTHER NEWS

• Mica Blames Bureaucracy For Delays In Accreditation. Historic City News On Tuesday, US Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL) “held an emergency meeting of state VA and other leaders…in St. Augustine City Hall, where he tells Historic City News Editor Michael Gold that he wants answers regarding the delay in getting proper accreditation for the Clyde E. Lassen State VA Nursing Home.” The lawmaker has “voiced his concern…to Veterans Administration and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.”

• Healthcare Providers Frustrated By Excessive EHR Alerts. InformationWeek A report “published in the April 12 issue of BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making…evaluated how Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) personnel are utilizing” electronic health record (EHRs.) The study, which drew from interviews conducted in 2009 with “44 healthcare employees working at two VA facilities,” found that clinicians “say they receive far too many alerts” from EHR systems and the “many unnecessary notifications…complicate the task of reviewing the more urgent alerts.” However, the study’s authors found that clinicians …

• Targeting Depression Helps Diabetes Patients’ Overall Health. WWJ-TV “A team of team of researchers led by investigators at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan Health System worked to improve diabetes patients’ health by first addressing their depression. The study evaluated a year-long program that began with behavioral therapy sessions over the telephone with a specially trained nurse and later phased in a walking program.”

• Can Acupuncture Help Treat Gulf War Syndrome? Stars And Stripes An “instructor at Harvard Medical School Osher Research Center and co-director of research” at the New England School of Acupuncture, “thinks she may have a cure for veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome: Stick needles in them.” Conboy is “one of the coordinators of a new Army-funded study into the value of acupuncture in managing the headaches, muscle soreness and other pain associated with the controversial disorder. The group is currently seeking about 120 volunteers living in the Northeast for the study.”

• Military Drug Abuse Linked To Prescription Of Pain Meds. Medscape “The strongest predictor of prescription drug misuse in the military is a history of receiving a prescription for pain medication within the past month or past year, according to a secondary analysis of a 2008 Department of Defense (DOD) Health Behavior Survey (Military Medicine. 2010;175:390). However, the findings, presented…at the American Society of Addiction Medicine 42nd Annual Medical-Scientific Conference, do not address reasons for abuse.

• PTSD iPhone App Launches For Veterans. InformationWeek “Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) now can turn to their mobile devices for help, thanks to a new application from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD).” InformationWeek continues, “The app can link them to local sources of support and even help manage their symptoms in the moment, according to the VA.” PTSD Coach, which is free and “now available via the iTunes store for the iPhone,” is the “first of a series of resources being offered for PTSD sufferers from the VA National Center for PTSD and the Defense Department’s National Center for Telehealth and Technology.”

• Organization Reaches Out To Wounded Warriors. American Forces Press Service “In what started out as a small pilot program, members” of Disabled American Veterans (DAV), “working with the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, began visiting wounded warriors at Fort Bragg, N.C., to talk about benefits and services available to them after they leave active duty. Now 40 DAV transition service officers have become regulars at 144 military installations participating in the joint VA-DOD Benefits Delivery and Discharge Program, which provides transition assistance to separating service members who incurred disabilities related to their military service.” Wally Tyson, DAV’s national commander, has “called DAV’s contribution a vital link to the newest generation of disabled veterans.”

• VA To Host Women Veterans Open House In Belle Fourche. Rapid City (SD) Journal On Wednesday, the Department of Veterans Affairs Black Hills Health Care System invited “women veterans to gather to meet other women veterans and learn more about health care services available to them.” The “open house is an effort to reach more than 2,000 female veterans in the VA Black Hills Health Care System service area and to increase awareness regarding care available to them.”

• VA Oakland Opens Women’s Health Center. Pittsburgh Business Times The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) was “scheduled to open a $1.6 million Healthy Women’s Center on Tuesday at…VA’s University Drive campus in Oakland.”  “‘The reality is that women veterans are not a typical patient and their health needs are not interchangeable with those of their male counterparts,’ VAPHS Director Terry Gerigk Wolf said in a prepared statement. ‘This brand-new Healthy Women’s Center celebrates those differences.'”

• State Honors World War II Veterans With Ceremony. Des Moines (IA) Register On Monday, 80 “or so Iowa veterans of World War II filled the gallery and the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives for a proclamation that honors all World War II veterans and commemorates 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor – Dec. 7, 1941.” The veterans “who accepted the applause of Iowa’s elected leaders noted that they weren’t the heroes – the heroes were the more than 400,000 men who died in the war.”

• Lest We Forget. Meridian (MS) Star “The dedication of the Mississippi Persian Gulf War Memorial brought about a wide variety of emotions from dignitaries and family members alike who had gathered Monday afternoon at the site” of the nearly completed Mississippi State Veterans Cemetery. It was an “emotional time described by some as having to relive that day they were informed their loved one had died in combat while serving in the region. Others…thought the wall holding 95 names and images of Mississippians who have died” was a fitting tribute.

• Vietnam Veteran Fights For Benefits. KJCT-TV Vietnam vet Joe Bentley has “been trying to get disability benefits from 40 years ago” from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Bentley, who says the benefits are for an injured foot, is “no longer just fighting for himself, but for all veterans.

• Counseling For Veterans Available At Potsdam Site. Watertown (NY) Daily Times “Readjustment counseling services for combat veterans and their families are available in Potsdam. The Watertown Vet Center has opened a satellite center in the basement of the Potsdam Public Library.” Services are offered there “every Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.”

• New Healing Environment For Vets. Omaha World-Herald On Tuesday, the first schematic designs for a “new $560 million Department of Veterans Affairs facility” that will replace the Omaha VA Medical Center were released by VA. The plans “call for a million-square-foot structure on the same grounds as the current hospital, northeast of 42nd and Center Streets.” According to the World-Herald, a “glass atrium running the length of the curved four-story building would serve as the…visual centerpiece” of the hospital, which would also have “green space and a memorial to the region’s veterans.”

• VA To Offer NAMI Class. Hendersonville (NC) Times-News The Charles George Veterans Affairs Medical Center “will offer a free National Alliance on Mental Illness Family-to-Family class for caregivers of people with a severe mental illness for the first time.” Veterans’ “families will be given priority in enrolling in the class, scheduled for 6-8:30 p.m. on 12 consecutive Tuesdays beginning May 24 at the VAMC in Asheville.”

• More Veterans And Spouses Could Gain From Aid And Attendance Pension Benefit. Washington Post A “little-known benefit called Aid and Attendance (A&A). A need-based, tax-free pension, A&A supports wartime veterans and their spouses who cannot pay for non-service-related medical needs.” Veterans Affairs officials “say that many more” than the approximately 182,000 veterans and their spouses currently taking advantage of the A&A benefit are eligible for it. According to Tom Pamperin, VA’s deputy undersecretary for disability assistance, there are a “lot of veterans where it’s been 40 years or more since they’ve been on active duty. It just doesn’t occur to them there may be a benefit from the VA.”

• “I Don’t Forget Those Days.” Culpeper (VA) Star Exponent “Established three years ago by the Virginia General Assembly, Wounded Warriors provides treatment and support for all veterans, including those with combat-related stress, brain injuries and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Community service boards statewide support the program, and there’s an active group that meets weekly in Fredericksburg.”