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Veteran Access to Mental Health Care Annotated Bibliography

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Veteran Access to Mental Health Care Annotated Bibliography

Daley, J. (2018). Ensuring timely access to quality care for US veterans. JAMA, 319(5), 439-

440.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is one of the most all-

encompassing aid programs for veterans that exist anywhere in the globe. Veterans who have

served their country faithfully and been discharged receive services from the Department of

Veterans Affairs (VA), whether at war or peace. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has

a track record of providing health care services to veterans who were either wounded or fell ill

while they were serving their nation ("service-connected veterans"), as well as to veterans, who

are financially disadvantaged and should pass a means test to meet the criteria for VHA care, is

the greatest of these services. 

This article examines the provision of medical care by the Department of Veterans

Affairs (VA) and a proposition by Congress to enhance the level of medical care available. The

post discusses how specialized teams probe Veterans Affairs Medical Centers, which have

received poor ratings regarding the quality of care they provide. Because of the lengthy wait

periods, the availability of appointments, and the distortion of availability, Congress decided to

adopt reform by passing The Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014, which

resulted in the development of a Veterans Choice program. Veterans unable to get an

appointment through the VA health system may take advantage of this new initiative that

provides them with alternate access. This article offers a comprehensive overview of the VA

Medical Center and its attempts to provide excellent care to the veterans that visit there.

Although it is up to date, this paper does not provide any statistical information to back up the
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effect of the availability of mental health services for veterans. Nevertheless, it does offer some

insight into the way care is provided. 

Hester, R. D. (2017). Lack of access to mental health services contributing to the high

suicide rates among veterans. International journal of mental health systems, 11(1), 1-

4.

This article focuses on the impact that veterans' service in the armed forces can have on

their mental health and the challenges that arise while attempting to treat mental disorders. The

provided data focuses on the high numbers of suicides that are prevalent among veterans and are

associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, poverty, substance misuse, and compulsive

gambling. The Affordable Care Act and its inability to increase mental health coverage is

another topic covered in this article. New laws have mandated advantages, but the Affordable

Care Act failed to provide them. A mental health diagnosis was given to more than 1.5 million of

the 5.5 million patients seen in VA institutions in 2016, a 31 percent growth from 2004. The

prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder is rising, and statistics show that 21 veterans take

their own lives daily. Ineffective crisis intervention, a workforce shortage, and inadequate

support resources are some of the contributing reasons. The management of the VA has

acknowledged that efforts are being made to address understaffing, and former President Obama

signed into law The Suicide Prevention for Veterans Act of 2015, which provides for community

engagement and loan repayments for individuals who are prepared to pursue mental health

graduate programs to offer workforce support within the VA Health System. This article gives a

balanced assessment of the benefits and problems in the availability of mental health services for

our veterans. It makes ideas for chances to strengthen support, evaluation, and crisis intervention

for our veterans and offers a list of those opportunities. 

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Rosen, C. S., Morland, L. A., Glassman, L. H., Marx, B. P., Weaver, K., Smith, C. A., ... &

Schnurr, P. P. (2021). Virtual mental health care in the Veterans Health

Administration’s immediate response to coronavirus disease-19. American

Psychologist, 76(1), 26.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increased demand for psychological

treatment among the world's population as well as the emergence of new obstacles for gaining

access to treatment. Clinics, mental health centers, and other facilities have the dilemma of

providing continuous treatment to a community that is experiencing tremendous stress while at

the same time reducing the number of in-person visits that have the potential to spread the

illness. Care is provided at 1,286 different locations by the Veterans Health Administration

(VHA), which is the biggest comprehensive health care system in the US. In the initial few

weeks following the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in the United States, the Veterans Health

Administration (VHA) secured the continuation of mental health care by aggressively extending

its utilization of telemental health approaches. When compared to the period between October

2019 and February 2020, prior to the pandemic, the VHA supplied roughly 1.2 million cellphone

and video contacts to soldiers in April 2020 while simultaneously reducing the number of in-

person appointments by about 80 percent When compared to the time before the pandemic, the

VHA reported an 11-fold rise in the number of contacts using direct-to-home streaming and a 5-

fold increase in the number of phone calls by June of 2020. This article examines studies on the

efficacy of telemental health, VHA regulations before COVID-19 that enabled the adoption of

telemental health at the system level, and steps taken by the VHA that swiftly scaled usage of

telemental health during the initial months of the epidemic. The main obstacles and experience

gained from the Veterans Health Administration's experience, as well as the implications for
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clinicians and health care services concerning the use of telemental health to fulfill patients'

mental health-care requirements during the pandemic, are also discussed in this piece.

Suicide Among Veterans and Other Americans 2001-2014. (n.d.). Retrieved

from https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/2016suicidedatareport.pdf

According to the findings of this study, compiled by the Office of Mental Health and

Suicide Prevention of the Department of Veteran Affairs, suicide was the tenth greatest cause of

death in the United States in 2014, and its prevalence is only growing. Veterans accounted for 18

percent of all recorded suicide fatalities, the total number of deaths. The research examines

veterans who both do and do not utilize VA services. It breaks down the data according to those

veterans' age, gender, and ethnicity. This study will assist in compiling quantitative data to back

up the differences between veterans and non-veterans. 

Conclusion

As I was compiling my materials for the annotated bibliography, I found it useful to check their

reliability. I searched the Capella Library and narrowed the findings to those that had been peer-

reviewed to ascertain the reliability of the materials. I opted for pieces from unbiased, peer-

reviewed publications that included up-to-date data. To help shape the final study report, I used

the annotation feature to specify the data's usefulness and reliability. Because of my experiences

talking to veterans who had difficulty getting the help they needed for their mental health

problems, I decided to look into the availability of specialized care for this population. The

median of 115 days to get an initial consultation caught me off guard. Analysis of available data

shows that our nation is falling short in caring for veterans with mental illnesses. There is room

for improvement in terms of government resources and crisis intervention. While telemedicine is
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promising, further work is needed to assess staffing and clinical routes to enhance case

management and provide access to community resources.