A unique mentoring programme that uses video conferences lets healthcare workers connect, learn from, and help each other with pain management in the U.S. This helps the Defense Health Agency (DHA) in the country to make sure there is a ready medical force.
DHA offers a range of virtual telehealth services, as well as telementoring services that connect patient care teams with specialists. This model lets care teams talk directly with subject matter experts to get advice, guidance, and support from expert teams or to take advantage of learning opportunities and grow professionally.
One example of a DHA telementoring programme is the ECHO Programme for Pain or the Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes. It was created to make it easier for people to get access to pain speciality care.
It “uses a ‘hub-and-spoke’ model with eight hubs located at strategic interdisciplinary pain clinics across the Military Health System (MHS). The hub of the DHA’s ECHO Programme for Pain is made up of specialists who are available for consultations and who meet with providers from the spokes at least once a week for learning sessions -in any military hospital or clinic.
Patient-Centred Medical Home teams use the Stepped Care Model for Pain Management. A key part of this model is the ECHO programme. The model uses treatments that have been shown to work to manage pain and keep acute pain from becoming chronic.
ECHO wants to help treat or give information and support for any chronic pain condition that the primary care manager or health care team may need help with. The provider then shows the case to the experts in the field to get advice on how to handle it.
DHA uses technology to build knowledge networks where pain specialists and primary care managers work together to take care of patients. In this way, ECHO helps service members, retirees, and other beneficiaries improve their health.
Telementoring programmes like ECHO are especially important for people who live and work in rural areas, where getting a referral to a pain specialist may take a long time or not be possible at all. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army released a consolidated Data Plan, which is an army-wide plan to improve data management and make the Army a data-driven organisation.
The plan is a three-year project that will help the Army get better at data management, data governance, and data analytics. The Army Data Plan (ADP) is focusing on the mission area of warfighting right now.
In this mission area, the goal of the ADP is to give the Warfighter an edge by making the changes needed to make sure that the Warfighter’s data is managed and used correctly. To get to this goal, the army has already started making prototypes of data management tools, capabilities, and models.
The army of 2030 will run on data and analysis of data. Soldiers will need the right information at the right time and in the right place to make faster and better decisions at each level and outthink and outrun any enemy.
Compared to earlier military operations, warfare now has a wider and more expansive scope. The army needs to get ready for and prevail in Multi-Domain Operations as a part of Joint All Domain Operations.
Each domain has its own flow of information and data. Some information comes from open-source intelligence, some from sensors in space, and some from cyberspace. Hence, soldiers and commanders need to combine information from different areas to control the battlespace.
Through the Army Data Plan, the army’s main goal is to be the best at making decisions. The ADP shows how the work will be organised and what the overall strategic goals are. It focuses on what needs to be done in the middle term, and it will be replaced by another update in the future.
