The Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) Service Line (SL) is charged with ensuring a consistent Service member experience, with standardized processes and measurements that provides transparency of IDES performance across the IDES to all stakeholders.
But the work of the IDES SL is also fundamentally tied to medical readiness and Service member availability, because Service members who are going through the IDES process are not medically available to deploy, and their positions can't be filled by commanders.
Everyone working on behalf or in coordination with the IDES Service Line knows that increased processing times for IDES means bigger hardships for Soldiers and their Families. What might be less obvious is that these increased processing times will also negatively affect Army Readiness because line commanders are unable to backfill the positions of Soldiers in IDES until the process is complete.
In other words, IDES is a critical factor in maintaining the medical readiness of our force. The current readiness level across the total force is roughly 83%, which is insufficient to maintain the number of healthy Soldiers that the force requires. By efficiently and quickly reducing the number of medical non-deployable Soldiers enrolled in IDES, there will be a direct increase in medical readiness across the total force.
IDES has made significant improvements to case processing times in 2014 and into this first half of CY 2015, which build off previous progress and successes from 2013.
These improvements not only benefit our wounded, injured, or ill Soldiers and their Families. Continued progress and resourcing for IDES is also necessary to maintain the overall medical readiness of our total force so that the Army can fully support any engagements on behalf of the nation.
While the headway made has clearly aided our wounded, injured, or ill Soldiers, our successes have also been essential in increasing the overall readiness of the force.
And a ready, healthy force will ensure the Army is prepared to meet our country's needs for all current or future missions.
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