Information for Providers

General

Deployment Health Clinical Center (DHCC) - Department of Defense
Military personnel, veterans, and their families along with health care providers with deployment health questions or concerns can contact the Department of Defense's Deployment Health Help-line at the Deployment Health Clinical Center located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The site includes a special section for clinicians that includes clinical guidelines for post deployment patient management, post traumatic stress disorder and depression and medically unexplained symptoms. There is also an education and training section that identifies quality training and education opportunities, including conferences, seminars, workshops, and other training events to build clinical practice skills.

GulfLINK Medical Information
This Department of Defense site offers clinical guidelines for post-deployment Gulf War Veterans and Gulf War illness-related medical research and publications.
Health of Veterans & Deployed Forces - Institute of Medicine (IoM)
The Institute of Medicine (IoM) has created a Web site with information about a variety of military-related health issues. The site has four separate sections covering the last four major military conflicts (WWII, Vietnam, Korea, and the Gulf War). The site includes IoM-produced reports, information on pending reports, studies about chemical and biological agents suspected of causing health problems for military members and information about deployment health.
Military Health System Clinical Quality Management - Pain Management Course
The Military Health System Clinical Quality Management Web Site is offering a one-hour Pain Management Course for physicinas, nurses, physician assistants and other performance improvement staff. Continuing Edication Credit is available.
Provider Resilience
Military health care providers now have a mobile application – Provider Resilience – to help keep them productive and emotionally healthy even as they cope with the stresses of treating those injured by war either directly or indirectly. Health care providers treating military personnel face high demands for their time and personal resources. Provider burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and other negative issues are always a concern. Through psychoeducation and self-assessments, the Provider Resilience app gives frontline providers tools to keep themselves productive and healthy as they help service members, veterans, and their families. It is available for android and IOS operating systems.
U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM)
U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine's mission is to provide worldwide technical support for implementing preventive medicine, public health, and health promotion/wellness services into all aspects of the Army. The site includes a number of fact sheets on illness ranging from tick-borne diseases and anthrax to "mad cow disease" and Escherichia coli O157:H7.
VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), in collaboration with the Department of Defense (DoD) and other leading professional organizations, has been developing clinical practice guidelines since the early 1990s. Guidelines for the Rehabilitation of Stroke and Amputation and the Care Guide for Ischemic Heart Disease were among the first distributed throughout VA in 1996 and 1997. Since that time, numerous others, including guidelines on diabetes mellitus, chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD), major depressive disorder, psychoses, tobacco use cessation, hypertension, and more, have been developed and distributed for implementation throughout the system.
Veterans Health Initiative (VHI) - Veterans Affairs
The Veterans Health Initiative (VHI) is a comprehensive program to recognize the connection between certain health effects and military service, to allow military medical history to be better documented and to prepare health care providers to better serve their veteran patients. The VHI includes several independent study guides for health care professionals that can be downloaded or used online at this site. Topics include cold injury, Agent Orange, Gulf War, radiation, and other subjects.

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Diabetes

VA/DoD Diabetes Mellitus (DM) Clinical Practice Guidelines
Diabetes clinical guidelines from the Veterans Health Administration, developed in collaboration with the Department of Defense (DoD) and other leading professional organizations.

Hepatitis

Chronic Hepatitis C: Current Disease Management (NIH)
This National Institutes of Health site provides current information on chronic hepatitis C disease management and includes information on risk factors and transmission, diagnosis, testing, treatment, research and additional resources.
Hepatitis C Care - Veterans Affairs
This is a comprehensive Web site on hepatitis C provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the University of California at San Francisco's Center for HIV Information.
Information for Providers - Hepatitis C - New York State Department of Health
The New York State Department of Health's hepatitis C Web site for providers provides up-to-date information and resources to assist physicians and other providers in the management of patients. Among the resources are links to online training, patient counseling messages, guides, and testing and disease management information.
National Hepatitis C Program Guidelines and Best Practices
This Department of Veterans Affairs Web page provides hepatitis C-related guidelines and best practices regarding treatment, prevention and transmission, testing and counseling, and HIV coinfection.

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HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS - New York State Department of Health
This state Health Department site provides a wide variety of information on HIV/AIDS testing, treatment, reporting requirements and resources. There is also information on the department's Clinical Education Initiative in which a statewide network of HIV Clinical Education programs can be tailored to meet the needs of providers through case conferences, lectures, preceptorships, satellite videoconferences, interactive CD-ROM modules, and audiocassettes and videocassettes at no cost.

Mental Health

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Toolkit
The Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Toolkit is a resource for primary care providers working with service members and veterans. The tool kit was developed through the collaborative efforts of Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE), U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

First released in February 2011, the tool kit is a comprehensive resource for primary care providers, promoting accurate screening and diagnosis, symptom management and referrals.

Provider Resilience
Military health care providers now have a mobile application – Provider Resilience – to help keep them productive and emotionally healthy even as they cope with the stresses of treating those injured by war either directly or indirectly. Health care providers treating military personnel face high demands for their time and personal resources. Provider burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and other negative issues are always a concern. Through psychoeducation and self-assessments, the Provider Resilience app gives frontline providers tools to keep themselves productive and healthy as they help service members, veterans, and their families. It is available for android and IOS operating systems.

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Mobile or SmartPhone Applications

mTBI Pocket Guide Mobile Application (For health care providers)
The Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Pocket Guide mobile application for health care providers gives instant access to a comprehensive quick-reference guide on improving care for mTBI patients. Designed to reflect current clinical standards of care, the mTBI Pocket Guide mobile application can help improve quality of care and clinical outcomes for patients. Military and civilian physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and related treatment and therapy providers can use the application to find information on assessing, treating, and managing common symptoms of mTBI patients. The mTBI Pocket Guide mobile app was designed by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and developed at the National Center for Telehealth & Technology.
Positive Activity Jackpot (PAJ)
Positive Activity Jackpot (PAJ) was designed to provide suggestions for positive activities can be accomplished on a daily basis. Resources such as PAJ have been found to help those with depression, self-harming behaviors, and more generally, in individuals without any mental health difficulties. PAJ includes Augmented Reality (AR) technology which allows the user to pan their local surrounding with their cell phone camera and view superimposed images of restaurants, shopping, social entertainment, and other positive activity options that are available within a user-defined distance. This app uses a professional behavioral health therapy called pleasant event scheduling, or PES, which is used to overcome depression. While the app does not require clinical training to use, it should not be used as a substitute for treatment by a therapist. This app has been developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology and has the Android operating system.
Provider Resilience
Military health care providers now have a mobile application – Provider Resilience – to help keep them productive and emotionally healthy even as they cope with the stresses of treating those injured by war either directly or indirectly. Health care providers treating military personnel face high demands for their time and personal resources. Provider burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and other negative issues are always a concern. Through psychoeducation and self-assessments, the Provider Resilience app gives frontline providers tools to keep themselves productive and healthy as they help service members, veterans, and their families. It is available for android and IOS operating systems.

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Radiation

Radiation Event Medical Management (REMM)
This Web site includes a new downloadable online diagnostic and treatment toolkit designed for health care providers, primarily physicians, who may have to provide medical care during a radiation incident. The information package, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, includes easy-to-follow procedures for diagnosis and management of radiation contamination and exposure, guidance for the use of radiation medical countermeasures, and a variety of other features to facilitate medical responses.

SARS

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) - New York State Department of Health
This state Health Department site provides updated information and treatment recommendations for physicians on SARS.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
This Armed Forces Institute of Pathology site provides information about the imaging and pathology of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

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Suicide

Department of Defense/Veterans Administration Suicide Outreach
The site provides access to support hotlines, assessments and treatment options, professional resources and forums, and various multimedia tools. This site supports all members of the U.S. military – active and reserve, veterans, families, friends, and providers.

TBI/PTSD

Brainline.org
This educational web site provides authoritative information about brain injury symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. For people living with a brain injury, their families, and professionals in the field, Brainline also offers an online community of support through social networking sites. It received support from the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center
DVBIC's mission is to server active duty military, their beneficiaries, and veterans with traumatic brain injuries through state-of-the-art clinical care, innovative clinical research initiatives and educational programs. DVBIC includes a network of 17 centers, operating out of 10 military treatment facilities, five VA polytrauma hospitals and two civilian rehabilitation centers. The site includes brain injury information for service members and their families as well as providers.
From the War Zone to the Home Front: Supporting the Mental Health of Veterans and Families
The Home Base Program in collaboration with the Department of Veteran Affairs' National Center for PTSD provides this free, CME-certified educational series to assist clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of the silent wounds of war in returning veterans and their families. This on-demand, 14-part, on-line educational series is led by nationally recognized faculty with expertise in diagnosing and treating PTSD and TBI with traditional and complementary evidence-based therapy. The faculty addresses the needs of military families and reviews how to recognize and treat the emotional stress present in spouses, parents, and children of veterans with PTSD or TBI.
National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-Information for Health Care Providers
The site contains fact sheets on assessments, common reactions, related problems, types of trauma and treatment as well as other educaitonal materials, manuals, videos and an on-line training program.
PTSD 101 - Veterans Affairs
PTSD 101 is a Web-based educational resource that is designed for busy practitioners who provide services to military men and women and their families as they recover from combat stress or other traumatic events.

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