Better Veteran Connections

Aeternal Group’s dedication to veteran wellbeing and advancement will gather more pace when the Veteran Connect platform launches later this year. Veteran Connect sets out to solve the problems of fragmented care systems, limited visibility of entitlements and the complex processes associated with veteran healthcare.

Aeternal Group is currently putting the finishing touches on a unified platform which can streamline access, improve care coordination and enhance the overall veteran experience.

We’ll share more on Veteran Connect soon.

By Kasey Mumford, CEO Aeternal Group

A strengthened focus on training GPs on the delivery and administration of veteran healthcare has the potential to lift the quality of life for a significant number of Australians.

Currently, there is a shortfall in the number of GPs who are both proficient in the administrative processes required to manage veterans’ access to funded healthcare and are well-versed in managing common service-related health issues. This means that veterans often find it difficult to find the healthcare they need. Additionally, these access issues can be exacerbated by the location and gender of the veteran patient.

On the surface, veterans currently make up 2.8 per cent of the Australian population. However, the family unit is also integral to their care. Expanding this figure to a 2.5-person household, we have the opportunity to better serve the healthcare needs of approximately six per cent of the population.

To address this, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has rolled out its VETs HeLP: Veterans Healthcare eLearning Platform, which provides online resources to address the needs of healthcare professionals engaging with veterans. However, the reach of this program with time-poor GPs is unknown and the shortfall of care remains to this day.

This issue can be better addressed with the addition of formal training on veteran healthcare embedded in medical schools and GP fellowship pathways.

At Aeternal Group, we welcome any discussion on initiatives that can boost veteran treatment knowledge among GPs.

We’d love to hear your ideas, so please write in with any suggestions or observations.

The Aeternal Group has released findings on women veterans’ healthcare gathered by the company in an anonymous survey.

The results, which highlight complexity and inadequacy in current options for women veterans in Australia, show that their issues are often overlooked despite women now representing over 20 per cent of the current ADF workforce.

The survey results are a precursor of potential healthcare difficulties to come while highlighting the struggles currently experienced by women veterans. Gathered from women who have served in the Army and the Navy, they include information on health services accessed and difficulties experienced, practitioners’ understanding of ADF service impacts on health and how health concerns were addressed when seeking care. Respondents also provided written comments on specific areas of women veteran health they believe need addressing.

The Main Messages

According to Aeternal Group CEO, Kasey Mumford, the messages conveyed in the responses were clear.

“The system is complex and patients and clinicians do not understand it,” Mumford said.

“Additionally, there is a lack of education or training to bridge the gap between the complexity and the end users.”

The responses indicated that some of the health issues experienced by women veterans came from role requirements in the ADF that had not been adjusted for gender.

“Men and women are expected to perform the same tasks and sometimes this will mean that the impact of a role on the health and wellbeing of a service women is greater than on her male counterparts,” Mumford said.

“Physical job requirements, such as manual tasks, physical training, marching with weight, have a greater impact on a woman’s body.

“Women are also often required to contend with environmental conditions that create greater psychological stress than for her male colleagues, such as working in male dominated environments with limited support.”

In Their Own Words

The written responses from the respondents added weight to the need for clearer information on the issues faced by women veterans.

From one respondent on understanding of impacts of service:

“No one believes the lifestyle I had was the same as my male flight coworkers.

“I had to doctor hop once, over six doctors, to receive my diagnosis. No one took me seriously.

From another respondent on the lack of information on healthcare access:

“I had no idea my entitlements until 10 years post discharge and now that I know it is hard to find a doctor that knows how to do the paperwork for your accepted conditions unless they themselves are a veteran.

“Telling a doctor how to do your referral for something like your physio or psychologist never goes down well because they hate being told what to do and they must think of the paperwork as something big and scary when it isn’t.”

Needing Assistance

Aeternal Group’s veteran health organisation, Provocatus, provides support to all veterans through its Veteran Access Scheme, which covers four pillars for support:

1. Medications
2. Appliances
3. Clinical Wellness
4. Education

For more information, please get in touch.