HealthCare Archives - Follow Her Red Shoes

August 13, 2019August 6, 2019

Military Suicide

We have come a long way in talking about this understated elephant in the room. Yet we have not found a solution. I used to say that our military personnel risk life and limb in theater (on the battlefield). I have revised my statement to say:

Our warfighters risk life, limb, and mind.

As a psychologist, this is not only an area of concern but it is also an area of expertise for me. My last billet was under personnel and readiness and this is the segment of military that focuses on these issues. Though I worked more on the readiness side, there is a reason these two subsections are connected. ‘Readiness’ is not just about being physically capable anymore, it is as much about being mindful of one’s surroundings, capable of making difficult and complex decisions under stress, and protective of the mind’s limitations.

There is no question that the services are taking this issue seriously. There is no question that society is doing the same. Sadly, there is also no question that we are not winning this battle of the mind and it is costing us dozens of servicemembers…daily.

How do we change course?

We need to take what is called a multi-dimensional approach to understanding why this continues to happen in such numbers and the pattern of events, thoughts, and feelings that lead up to suicide. These are not new ways of looking at this issue but what is new is recognizing that a) we have a self-selecting group that enters the military, b) we have traditionally looked at how to treat our personnel after they return from theater, and c) we focus on the individual when perhaps we need to consider the system. There are many avenues that have yet to be thoroughly researched or implemented including preparatory mind exercises to reduce the onset or severity of PTSD and structures that can be put in place following service to ensure that our vets are receiving the same daily life support to which they become accustomed during their active duty time. It can be significantly disconcerting to come back to a society so unaware of the realities of what our servicemembers experience.

We can create readiness programs that focus on mind insulation and preparation.

We can create support structures post-service that provide a continuation of the design they are used to.

We can improve our transition preparation and process to ensure success!

No one avenue will help. Rather, it needs to be a combination of assets, preparation, tools, options, and ultimately, continued teamwork within the military community to support all our active duty, reservist, and veteran defenders.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

August 6, 2019August 6, 2019

Modeling Collective Brilliance

In my observations of and time spent working with the military, I am consistently impressed by the collective and pervasive ability of service members to, actually or metaphorically, duct tape anything together and make it work.

Ingenuity is a hallmark of the services.

But there are two other common mantras (I suppose I should acknowledge here that in fact there are many more as well): ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel’ and ‘Teamwork matters.’

All of these ideas are employed in the Veterans’ support team in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This may be a small town, but it boasts an extensive decorated military heritage and a huge active support team for vets. I had the honor of getting to meet and talk with many of the members of this exceptional city and learn about not only the individual programs that they each run but also about how they work together to meet all needs for all vets. These men and women represent what I call ‘collective brilliance.’

As I come out of military readiness, the mantras above resonate with me, guide me, shape how I look at problems. Rarely is it the case that money is the sole element required to solve a problem. Even more rare is the probability that someone hasn’t already solved it. Rather, it is most often the case that some person or some group have solved either the exact problem you’re facing or at least a portion of it already. When this is the case, it is cheaper, easier, and far more effective to simply connect the dots than it is to spend more money solving the same problem…yet again.

I call this process: Find Brilliance; Repeat.

This idea is what has driven me to traverse our country. It is my hypothesis that we have all the talent, ideas, programs, and examples across the amazing, large, exceptional country of ours that we need to solve all of our national issues. We simply need to find those that have solved pieces of each issue and connect them.

Bowling Green, KY has demonstrated how teamwork matters for true change. They have proven that federal dollars can be used to pay for facilitative actions (like a coordination person or team) and combined with local programs that know their residents and needs best. It sounds simple in concept but too often in federal work we aim to create large-scale, costly solutions because we focus on budgets, politics, and solving problems in Washington while unintentionally missing the local capabilities.

BGKY helps confirm my belief that government operates at its best when it acts as a facilitative entity that helps coordinate local brilliance and share models of success across states.

Thank you to everyone BGKY – you guys embody my campaign motto: Unity Strength Action. Thoughts and ideas are great but if and only if they result in action. You all are exemplary.

Disclaimer: As always, interviewees provide information, not endorsements.

July 30, 2019July 21, 2019

Focus on Prevention

Too often, we focus on solving problems by looking at symptoms, then trying to eradicate them. If healthcare costs too much, then we find a way to reduce the cost with subsidies or increase taxes for the rich to pay for the poor. If we see people without healthcare, we create a government program to give it away for free. And of course, there’s always the plan of – if we can’t fix the situation, we’ll ignore it until it goes away or the people affected stop complaining.

Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions, these plans will never work because they don’t actually solve the root issues. What needs to happen is a full re-architecting of the healthcare system. One of the first changes needs to focus on teaching, encouraging, and focusing on preventative health. Anxiety, depression, heart disease, and a host of many other ailments are induced by high, continuous stress. Well known as this is, we continue to favor the ‘well-rounded student who does everything,’ reward and encourage work-a-holic behavior, and focus on, as well as measure, achievement over experience. In other words, it is not enough to create access to doctors, clinics, or hospitals, we have to create a national cultural shift that values wellness. We have to educate young people, design a value system that views life as an experiential journey, and use the power of the government to facilitate healthcare that starts with prevention as a measurable pillar of the system.

If we hope to create a healthy society in mind and body, we must look beyond medicine to cure disease and begin by looking to ourselves and living a healthy lifestyle.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

July 23, 2019July 21, 2019

Healthcare is not a punchline; It’s an ecosystem

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that short punchlines often spoken by politicians tell us little about how such chants can be realized. And yet, the wonk that shares all the details bores the crowd. Where’s the middle ground? Medicare for all is a widely shared idea but very little information exists regarding how it would exactly be implemented. Further, it relies on Congress to allocate extensive funds to get the existing system expanded and maintained.

Beyond these challenges, I am constantly perplexed by the fact that, not just in healthcare but across most areas, there already exist mature programs that could address many of these national issues, cheaper, faster, better. You might wonder why people running for president do not know about these programs. For that matter, why don’t Americans, who are paying for all these solutions, know about these programs? Two simple reasons: 1) there are too many for anyone to track and 2) government employees aren’t allowed to share information without permission. Ultimately it means that we are all forced to make decisions with limited knowledge and out of necessity to be short and sweet, politicians provide us with punchlines they believe will make us vote (regardless of whether or not the stated goal is achievable or not).

How do we change this practice? We approach problems through a new lens and ask different questions. We look at healthcare not just through the lens of a new law or more money but rather by looking at the entire system and idea of health and wellness care, combining that information with government programs already being funded, and talk to the individuals both providing services as well as receiving them. When we put all that information together, we have a chance of creating a system that really works in terms of cost, care, and citizens.

National Readiness starts with ensuring our Earth is healthy but very next, ensuring that our people are healthy. When Americans are ready to learn, ready to work, and ready to live – that’s when we truly have created a system that works.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash