Defense Health Care: Quality Assurance Process Needed to Improve Force Health Protection and Surveillance.

摘要

Following the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War, many servicemembers experienced health problems that they attributed to their military service in the Persian Gulf. However, a lack of servicemember health and deployment data hampered subsequent investigations into the nature and causes of these illnesses. Public Law 105-85, enacted in November 1997, required the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a system to assess the medical condition of service members before and after deployments. GAO was asked to determine whether (1) the military services met DOD's force health protection and surveillance requirements for servicemembers deploying in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Central Asia and Operation Joint Guardian (OJG) in Kosovo and (2) DOD has corrected problems related to the accuracy and completeness of databases reflecting which servicemembers were deployed to certain locations.