JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas -- "I believe the symposium accomplished the goals that we had set. It allowed (Department of Defense) and (Department of Veteran Affairs) clinicians an opportunity to present, discuss and learn from each other the lessons that have been learned over the last decade of caring for the wounded from the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters," said Stuart Campbell, program manager for the 2015 Federal Advanced Amputation Skills Training (FAAST) Symposium, May 19-21.
"The symposium highlighted the rehabilitative care provided in DoD and VA facilities is truly state-of-the-art. I also believe that we, at the Center For the Intrepid, were able to demonstrate to the VA participants that the sports medicine model we use for rehabilitation can be used in the populations most commonly seen in their clinics," Campbell said. "I would like to think that participants left the symposium with an increased skill set and that they were reinvigorated to go back to their clinics and challenge their patients to reach higher levels of function."
Approximately 100 medical experts from the DoD and VA attended the 2015 Federal Advanced Amputation Skills Training (FAAST) Symposium. Leading experts and health care professionals of these two federal healthcare systems joined in a collective effort to share information and collaborate on how to best care for service members and veterans who have sustained limb-loss or other traumatic injury.
Along with a small group of physicians from the Colombian Army, attendees of the joint training symposium included DoD and VA physicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, prosthetists, and other clinical staff who traveled from across the country to participate in the training hosted at San Antonio Military Medical Center and the Center For the Intrepid (CFI), Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas.
Now in its second year, the FAAST Symposium provides a platform for healthcare professionals to not only share their best practices in extremity trauma care, but also to learn more about amputation care and to keep up with the latest technology and approaches to limb-loss rehabilitation.
According to recent reports, more than 1,600 Service Members have lost limbs through combat in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn. Of this number, more than 300 have lost multiple limbs. There are also over 40,000 Veterans with limb-loss who receive care for their amputations through the VA healthcare system. To minimize inconsistencies in practices that have been identified between these two federal healthcare systems, particularly in rehabilitation medicine, healthcare professionals have teamed up to provide an annual comprehensive update on rehabilitation principles, emerging issues, and research in the area of extremity trauma and amputation care. With new amputees receiving state-of-the-art prostheses and transitioning to the civilian sector for lifelong follow-up medical care with the VA, it is essential that DoD clinicians share lessons learned with their VA counterparts. However, the ultimate goal is to learn, establish, and implement the best practices from both systems and apply them to provide the highest level of care to all service members, veterans, and beneficiaries.
"Our active duty service members sustaining limb-loss or extremity trauma now will one day be Veterans," said John C. Shero, executive director of the DoD/VA Extremity Trauma and Amputation Center of Excellence, or EACE. "It's really important that we ensure we have a continuum of care that has the most advanced level of care so we can return all of our service members and veterans to their highest possible functional ability."
The EACE, together with the VA Amputee System of Care, is leading in this effort to maintain the nation's amputee and extremity trauma care capability. In 2009, the DoD/VA was legislated by Congress to serve as a collaborative organization to enhance partnerships between the DoD and VA and across the multidisciplinary international, federal and academic networks. Per Congressional mandate, under the 2009 Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act, the EACE conducts clinically relevant research to develop scientific information that is aimed at saving injured extremities, avoiding amputations, and preserving and restoring the function of injured extremities.
"I think the collaboration has really strengthened quite a bit in the past couple years, partly as a result of the FAAST symposiums. This is our second annual FAAST Symposium, but we also have on-going joint training and I think it has really enhanced and improved our collaborations," said Joseph B. Webster, M.D., national medical director for the VA's Amputation System of Care. "Another piece that has really helped is the DoD/VA Extremity Trauma and Amputation Center of Excellence. I think this Center of Excellence has really enhanced collaborations across the VA and DoD."
This year's DoD-hosted training was conducted a little differently than the previous year. In the morning, the attendees listened to various presentations that focused on new information and techniques. The training was more hands-on the afternoon, allowing the attendees to interact with one another and practice the things they were being taught.
"The primary purpose for attending this training is to be able to provide new education and training to our providers so we improve care for our service members and veterans, and for our providers to obtain new skills or new knowledge," Webster said. "It also brings people together. It really helps to enhance relationships between individuals and also between the VA, DoD, and the providers in both care systems. I think this type of collaboration allows people to really develop relationships and gain a better understanding of what happens in either the VA or DoD healthcare systems."
While this year's symposium has built on the success of last year's symposium, Webster said these collaborations should translate into improved care and improved outcomes for the patients that are treated by both the DoD and VA.
"Even though we're all treating (limb-loss) patients and some of those patients with amputations do get their care at both the VA and the DoD, in general, the population that we're serving in the VA is an older population," Webster said. "Most of those individuals have had their amputations not because of trauma but because of vascular disease, diabetes, or other disease processes. With the military patients, it's much more focused on the younger population, primarily those that have had traumatic amputations due to combat. I think the approach to that population is a little bit different so we learn from each other's expertise."
There were many highlights to the training, according to Shero. In addition to having both DoD and VA attendees, there were both DoD and VA staff presenting the information discussed this year.
"It's a collaborative team-teach environment. It's not just one portion of the federal sector, it's both portions of the federal sector that are represented here," said Shero, who was pleased to see clinicians from all three DoD Advanced Rehabilitation Centers were represented -- Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Center for the Intrepid (CFI) at San Antonio Military Medical Center, and Comprehensive Combat and Complex Casualty Care (C5) at Naval Medical Center San Diego.
"The greatest thing that we can achieve through shared training opportunities, such as the FAAST Symposium, is to enhance our collaboration and ensure that both the DoD and the VA bring their providers to the highest possible state of training and readiness so that we can provide the very best care for our service members and veterans."
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