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Article: What's Brewin: A suicide tracking system for VA?(Veterans Affairs)
- Article from:
- NextGov.com
- Article date:
- August 11, 2009
- Author:
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Byline: Bob Brewin
That would seem like a really good idea after news broke last week that nearly 1,000 troops a month have attempted suicide after returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to internal VA e-mails, even though the department publicly acknowledged only 790 suicide attempts in all of 2007.
Comment on this article in The Forum.VA rolled out a pilot tracking system and suicide prevention database in 2005 to hospitals and clinicians in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. But Dr. Michael Kussman, VA's undersecretary for health, testified that the tracking system had not been deployed throughout the department as of the end of ...