The Broadcast Edge

  If a serviceperson on nightshift deployment or nightshift military work returns to a civilian life, what does this transition look like? How much does it matter which country he or she returns to, what type of negative experiences they encountered or what type of daytime work they now hold? And what if they have work responsible to attentive certification or classification, such as trucking? What if they have compounded stress with new first response work? What should we anticipate for his or her behavioral and mental health needs? And what about those who have sleepless nights, those with substance abuse, those with PTSD, those with other neuropsychiatric conditions? The big issues in military health aren’t the easy ones. Arguably, this is all the more reason to align global effort. The right international breezes know how to navigate the most challenging complexities.   Military behavioral health, and all the imperfections along the way, are the most challenging of c...

  Twelve Mantra Questions for Starting Up Theater Successfully   Theater capabilities and deployment readiness should be improved, coordinated and stacked with thunderous evidence-based science.   Stacking the readiness science for the internationally deployed Multi-national efforts to structure theater preparedness have identified several opportunities for improvement. These should be part of funded set design.   1. Multi-national efforts capitalize on current structure and no governing bodies oversee inclusivity. There is no theater guild to support international deployment readiness science across military groups. This threatens a blackballed situation and, therefore, threatening integrity to science and health equity. Host countries are a component for epidemiology, particularly with infectious disease threats in LMIC. Yet these countries are not included in conversation of multi-national deployment readiness. Specifically, Africa and Asia are bases for NAT...

  Copyists and imitations, a high form of echo flattery, should be appreciated as opportunity. We should build off one another’s work and words, bridging the best of scientific collaboration worldwide for real-time cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health in military and veteran populations 1. Future work should incorporate evidence in specific deployment science that does not point to increased CVD and cerebrovascular risk 2.    Future work should incorporate specialty science evidence that considers CVD and cerebrovascular risks, such as blood lipid work, toxin exposure and other unknowns. Future work should incorporate chronic conditions, such as obesity and diabetes. 3.    Future work should incorporate TBI and neurological trauma, including PTSD, into science around strokes, cardiology and distinctions. 4. Future work should use stroke science to bridge international cooperation in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular considerations for military populations....

 Lessons Learned: Setting some rules for part twos Recommendations without follow through are inefficient at best, intentional grounding at worst. Neither of these labels advance. Our health is our wealth; it factors into every avenue of our life. There is no room for intentional grounding of the health of the deployed, let alone inefficient operations. Recommendations are the lessons learned in healthcare. Many healthcare organizations, operations and issues are accompanied by improvement agenda. Much of the industry is held to recommendations in reports through reimbursement, consumer marketing, annual updates to the company, board oversight and/or general good management. Comparatively, much of the military is held to politics, administration and security. The latter environment would warrant a more structured approach to public reporting on recommendation follow through, yet there is none. In fact, the primary way the military even gets its recommendations is through specific r...

    Taking No for an Answer and Other Business Mistakes 1) The disorganization around deployment science is unacceptable.  The average member of the public doesn't know what to think. Consuming reports on Middle East deployment exposures is confusing.  Countries involved issue sporadic, inconsistent and conflicting reports.  When researchers revisit the issues that started in early 1990's, they almost always   contradict the reports that originally devalued further science.  There is no roadmap forward in deployment research.  With no planning for consistent updates, the public is left without structure and unable   to anticipate.  2) We need to move on, and move on quickly.  Recognizing political and scientific frustration, we need to move forward. We must accept that earlier reports took no for an answer, forgoing the opportunity to be watchful guardians for hundreds of thousands of individuals over upcoming several decades. O...