Newswise — U.S. soldiers seeking treatment at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and in Army medical facilities worldwide, will have a new tool to help them thanks to an online system being developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution (NCTDR) at the university is using funding from the eBay Foundation to build online dispute resolution applications that can be used to help resolve problems that veterans and active duty personnel may encounter as they seek medical care.
The NCTDR, working with the National Mediation Board (NMB), has created a prototype online Ombudsman access portal that allows individuals to ask questions, post replies, or simply provide information to the Army Ombudsman. It is a safe, effective and confidential means of augmenting the existing advocacy program that is neutral and outside the chain of command, says Ethan Katsh, NCTDR director, and a professor of legal studies at UMass Amherst.
Katsh says the impetus for the new system was a series of stories published in the Washington Post in February 2007 on difficulties some soldiers were having when they sought medical care. In some cases they were denied care, placed in substandard conditions, or ended up lost in the bureaucratic system, according to the media reports.
The Army's initial response to the problems at Walter Reed was to create an aggressive patient advocacy program, using uniformed soldiers to serve as advocates for the wounded warriors. Katsh and Daniel Rainey of the NMB (a Fellow of the NCTDR) met with the Army leadership at Walter Reed to propose an Ombudsman program that would go beyond the patient advocacy program.
As a result of their intervention, the Army developed an Ombudsman program for its entire Medical Command, using retired soldiers trained as ombudsmen, reporting to the top of the chain of command.
After further consultation and demonstration of an online Ombudsman portal developed for the NMB, the Army agreed to develop an online portal for its program. The online Ombudsman portal allows for all interested parties (patients, family members, doctors, staff and the public) to communicate with the Army Ombudsman, and to do so anonymously. The Army's online portal is now under development and should go online during the summer.
Anonymity is important because in the context of the military, seeking resolution of complaints or treatment issues outside the so-called chain of command can have serious negative impacts on a soldier's status and treatment.
"This project addresses the needs of persons in very unfortunate circumstances," Katsh says. "The system previously in place failed them and only received attention when patients went outside the system because the processes in place were inadequate. This project exploits new technological capabilities to communicate at a distance through channels that were not previously possible."
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