An official website of the United States government
Official websites use .mil A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization.
Secure .mil websites use HTTPSA lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Oct
14
15
Cancer care coordinators and nurse navigators help patients ‘through their treatment journey, from diagnosis into survivorship’
Defense Health Agency nurse navigators and care coordinators are a vital part of a cancer patient’s healthcare team, helping them navigate the numerous appointments, specialists, tests, and decisions. Navigators and coordinators ensure patients receive timely care, support their recovery journey, and keep active duty patients connected with their clinical teams and commands.
DEERS System Outage, Oct. 9-11
During this time, beneficiaries may be unable to update contact information, verify eligibility, or complete enrollment actions. Access to TRICARE and other DOD benefit systems that rely on DEERS may also be temporarily affected.
The Psychological Health Center of Excellence creates systematic reviews and rapid reviews. These reviews can help stakeholders in the Military Health System make decisions about psychological healthcare.
Systematic reviews answer specific questions by evaluating and summarizing existing research. For example, they can help us better understand how safe and effective a healthcare intervention is. Systematic reviews are different than other types of reviews because they use a transparent and thorough process to identify and evaluate research studies. The Institute of Medicine in 2011 in Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews, Cochrane, and other organizations outline best practices for conducting these reviews.
Systematic reviews are considered one of the best ways to synthesize evidence. They provide comprehensive, thoroughly researched summaries of current science. They are extremely helpful in informing healthcare practices and policies that are supported by scientific research. They can, however, require several resources and take up to several years to complete. Alternatively, “rapid reviews” can be conducted when evidence summaries are needed within a shorter timeframe.
Unlike systematic reviews, rapid reviews don’t follow a standard set of methods. Instead, they modify traditional systematic review procedures to reduce the amount of time and resources needed. The table below shows some potential modifications. Rapid reviews differ depending on the stakeholder's goal, the topic’s scope, and the amount of time available to complete the review.
Abbreviated search using a limited number of databases and resources
May apply restrictions limiting results to certain publication dates, study types, language, etc.
Inclusive, pre-defined criteria for inclusion
Two reviewers concurrently reviewing and selecting studies
Meticulous review of full-text articles and extraction of multiple data elements
Narrow criteria for inclusion, which may be iteratively redefined based on search results
Single reviewer screening and selection of studies
Limited data elements for extraction
Qualitative and quantitative synthesis of findings
May include meta-analysis
Comprehensive critical appraisal of individual studies and quality of evidence assessment
Descriptive summary of findings
Characteristics of included studies
May include critical appraisal of individual study designs
PHCoE receives topics of interest for evidence synthesis from leaders and decision-makers across the MHS. A team of PHCoE staff works with the requestor to refine key questions and devise a protocol for conducting the review. The PHCoE team then executes the agreed upon methodology to produce the report. In the past several years, our reviews have focused on the topics presented in the graphic below.
View peer-reviewed publications:
The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of non-U.S. Government sites or the information, products, or services contained therein. Although the Defense Health Agency may or may not use these sites as additional distribution channels for Department of Defense information, it does not exercise editorial control over all of the information that you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this website.