LTC Vickie L Tuten
Military Hearing Conservation has had to evolve in the face of large-scale deployments/redeployments and mobilizations/demobilizations. Army Audiology has had some recent mandates for deployment with the requirements for DD2215s and pre-formed hearing protective devices. These mandates are welcomed for their attention to hearing loss as it relates to soldier combat readiness. It has forced Hearing Conservation Program Managers to look at how effectively they are doing things in the Hearing Conservation arena. Can we meet the expectations for timely processing of soldiers at SRPs while not compromising quality of care? This presentation will focus on presenting the challenges and will further discuss some of the successes and failures in the program at Fort Hood during OEF/OIF in meeting those challenges. The intent of the presentation is to present ideas on how to do it right while doing it fast…and to spur further discussion of how we might do it better.