The problem, of the lack of treatment for wounded soldiers, started at the Walter Reed Medical Center, so the Army came up with a solution of opening the Warrior Transition Units. In the hast of opening the Warrior Transition Unit the Army did not plan ahead for the services needed to treat the returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. Soon the Warrior Transition Unit were full of soldiers needing medical attention for physical wounds that they had received during the war that they were in. These are the easer patients to provide services for the care that they need is quite apparent. The other soldiers that are receiving care at the Warrior Transition Unit are in need of psychological care recovering form traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder. These patients are much harder to treat because of the lack of physical injury.
After restructuring the care for the wounded the Army came up with the Triad of care system. It was better than the Walter Reed Medical Center system but still lacks the needed care for the soldiers. The Primary Care Physician would have a case load of two hundred patients to one primary care physician. The Squad Leader (a non-commissioned officer serving as the primary link to the chain of command) would have a ratio of ten soldiers of on squad leader. The Case Manager (responsible for collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, and advocacy of options and services to meet the individuals health needs) would have a ratio of one case manager to twenty patients.
How can this plan work? It looks good in writing but look at the numbers this is a unrealistic amount of patients for anyone to be able to handle in a hospital setting. One Doctor, with a patient load of two-hundred patients on daily basics, how can this be acomplished? One nurse trying to take care of twenty patients, this is at least in the grasp of being able to be accomplished how long before this professional burns out and no longer cares about the people that he or she is caring for.
The biggest problem facing the Warrior Transition Unit is the lack of Primary Care Physicians if the Doctor worked every day of the month, the Doctor would have fifty-four minutes per patient. That is thirteen minutes and thirty seconds a week. These numbers reflect if the doctor is working twelve hour days and does not take a break, and has his patient come to the Doctors office. The Army needs to have more Doctors at the Warrior Transition Unit how can anybody be treated this way for anything that they would be in the hospital for. If the Army would have made the ratio one Primary Care Physician to one-hundred patients this would have given the patient forty-five minutes a week with the Doctor.
The case manager (the patients Nurse) in charge of care of the soldiers has a little more time to spend with the patient but not enough to be effective. The nurse is responsible for medication management making the patient’s appointments and general care of the soldier.
The squad leader has the best because the squad leader has only a few patient that they are in charge. The squad leader should know the most about each of the patients that they are in charge of except most of the squad leader have no or very little medical training so the squad leader is not very efficient connection between the nursing staff and Doctors.
The Warrior Transition Unit needs to increase the number of Doctors and Nurses that are responsible for the care of the soldiers, the squad leaders need more medical training, so that they can become an effective role in the recovery of the patients.
The Warrior Transition Unit have become a dumping ground for the soldiers who are being discahged from the Army. The Army is looking for a place to hide these soldiers until they can dump the wounded soldiers in the lap of the Veterans Administration medical system. Who is this helping? The Army they can discharge the soldier and not have to worry about the care that the soldier needs to receive.
