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. 2016 Jun 20;6(1):14.

Quality of Care for PTSD and Depression in the Military Health System: Phase I Report

Kimberly A Hepner, Elizabeth M Sloss, Carol P Roth, Heather Krull, Susan M Paddock, Shaela Moen, Martha J Timmer, Harold Alan Pincus

Quality of Care for PTSD and Depression in the Military Health System: Phase I Report

Kimberly A Hepner et al. Rand Health Q. .

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) strives to maintain a physically and psychologically healthy, mission-ready force, and the care provided by the Military Health System (MHS) is critical to meeting this goal. Given the rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression among U.S. service members, attention has been directed to ensuring the quality and availability of programs and services targeting these and other psychological health (PH) conditions. Understanding the current quality of care for PTSD and depression is an important step toward improving care across the MHS. To help determine whether service members with PTSD or depression are receiving evidence-based care and whether there are disparities in care quality by branch of service, geographic region, and service member characteristics (e.g., gender, age, pay grade, race/ethnicity, deployment history), DoD's Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) asked the RAND Corporation to conduct a review of the administrative data of service members diagnosed with PTSD or depression and to recommend areas on which the MHS could focus its efforts to continuously improve the quality of care provided to all service members. This study characterizes care for service members seen by MHS for diagnoses of PTSD and/or depression and finds that while the MHS performs well in ensuring outpatient follow-up following psychiatric hospitalization, providing sufficient psychotherapy and medication management needs to be improved. Further, quality of care for PTSD and depression varied by service branch, TRICARE region, and service member characteristics, suggesting the need to ensure that all service members receive high-quality care.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Timing of Cohort Entry and Computation of 12-Month Observation Period
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Measure Rates for Eligible Active-Component Service Members in PTSD Cohort, 2012–2013
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Measure Rates for Active-Component Service Members in Depression Cohort, 2012–2013
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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