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Wounded soldiers get help from Alabama native

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — An Army physician from Alabama says helping establish a unit to improve treatment for wounded soldiers was the most challenging — and rewarding — experience of his military career.

That unit is known as the Warrior Transition Brigade and has been operating for more than a year. It was established after reports of bad living conditions and bureaucratic snarls experienced by soldiers who were outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.

Lt. Col. Michael Bell, a Tuscaloosa native and father of three, was assigned the task of improving Walter Reed’s outpatient services.

Bell, 43, told The Birmingham News he wanted to get involved after seeing stories of soldiers receiving inadequate outpatient treatment at Walter Reed.

The public demanded improvements after Washington Post articles in February 2007 detailed decrepit and dangerous conditions in a building housing outpatients, and bureaucratic and military hassles that wounded soldiers faced in getting needed care.

“When I saw those stories, I really felt that I needed to try and get involved,” Bell said.

Bell, a University of Alabama graduate, had already completed deployments in and around Iraq and Afghanistan. He had a challenging assignment as command surgeon, or medical director, at the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency, but he felt suited to help improve the outpatient treatment at Walter Reed.

“What was going on at Walter Reed at the time, I think, was that they were so focused on the outstanding clinical care that they were providing for the hospitalized patients, that they weren’t really fully seeing the scope of things that were going on in the outpatient setting,” Bell said.

Bell reported to Walter Reed in March 2007. Using data from electronic medical records, he and colleagues sought to pinpoint outpatient problems and “choke points.”

The No. 1 problem was that primary care was fragmented, Bell said. More specifically, 65 providers were handling the primary medical care for about 700 outpatients. Outpatients who were regular Army, Army National Guard and reservists had separate units.

With the backing of Walter Reed officials, Bell and other members of his team set up a unit for all the outpatients with “a triad of support.” He said that prevented patients from “floating through the system on their own.”

By the time the Warrior Transition Brigade was fully up and running in July 2007, one primary care doctor was responsible for every 200 outpatients; one case manager for every 18, and one squad leader for every 12.

Bell left the Warrior Transition Brigade in July. He now is at the Army’s Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, working to develop an evidence-based program to help the military more effectively deal with mental health issues that have dogged many soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.