Troops Who Have Been Wounded Are Being Discharged For Misconduct At Increasingly High Rate
A Government Accountability Office report finds that the Army often failed to conduct required screenings for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries before discharging soldiers.
The New York Times:
Wounded Troops Discharged For Misconduct Often Had PTSD Or T.B.I.
Three-fifths of troops discharged from the military for misconduct in recent years had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or another associated condition, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office. The report, mandated by Congress, for the first time combined military medical and staffing data, as well as data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, to show that tens of thousands of wounded troops were kicked out of the armed forces and severed from benefits designed to ease their transition from service in war. (Philipps, 5/16)
In other national health care news —
The Associated Press:
Study: Taking Abortion Pill At Home As Safe As In A Clinic
Medical abortions done at home with online help and pills sent in the mail appear to be just as safe as those done at a clinic, according to a new study. The research tracked the outcomes of 1,000 women in Ireland and Northern Ireland, who used a website run by a group called Women on Web to get abortion pills. The Netherlands-based nonprofit provides advice and pills to women seeking an early abortion in more than 140 countries where access to abortion is restricted. Ireland and Northern Ireland have some of the world's strictest laws, often only granting approval when a woman's life is at risk. (5/16)
The New York Times:
Babies From Skin Cells? Prospect Is Unsettling To Some Experts
Nearly 40 years after the world was jolted by the birth of the first test-tube baby, a new revolution in reproductive technology is on the horizon — and it promises to be far more controversial than in vitro fertilization ever was. Within a decade or two, researchers say, scientists will likely be able to create a baby from human skin cells that have been coaxed to grow into eggs and sperm and used to create embryos to implant in a womb. (Lewin, 5/16)
Modern Healthcare:
IBM Watson Health, MAP Health Management Join Forces On Addiction Treatment
IBM Watson Health and MAP Health Management, a population health software maker, have teamed up to create new software that uses cognitive computing to treat long-term addiction and substance abuse. The new version of the MAP Recovery Network platform is driven by IBM's Watson technology, which adds cognitive computing and machine learning to the population health software, allowing it to process unstructured data and to learn as it goes, thereby becoming more and more accurate. (Arndt, 5/16)