Courtesy Photo | Soldiers from the 996th Area Support Medical Company are standing in long, winding...... read more read more
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PHOENIX - Soldiers from the 996th Area Support Medical Company are standing in long, winding lines within the Tempe Armory in Tempe, Ariz. They are engaged in a well-known, rousing game of “Hurry up and wait.” Why? It's the Periodic Health Assessment of course.
The PHA is a periodic health assessment and an annual evaluation of soldiers overall fitness, said 1st Sgt. Terry H. Thompson, senior noncommissioned officer for the 996th ASMC. The process consists of a series of stations that each soldier must visit. Each station is tended by a healthcare professional that will test different aspects of the soldier's well-being, including vision testing, hearing testing, dental exams, and blood labs. Immunizations and age-specific examinations are also part of the process for those who need them.
Soldiers can expect to make a day, or most of one, with this lengthy, uneventful, and yet somehow tiring event as they stand in line for each of the several booths that they must visit. Sgt. James K. Winchester, squad leader in the 996th ASMC said that though the process involves a lot of waiting, the time taken is understandable given the number of people involved. Thompson said that his unit used to send soldiers to get their PHA on their birth month. The issue with that method was that there were soldiers missing from drill every month, and consolidating the process into one day fixed this issue.
Why do soldiers do the PHA? Who does it benefit? The PHA helps soldiers who might not be aware of any health issues, but it also helps them in a different way. According to Lt. Col. Kenneth Stice, battalion commander of the 158th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, the PHA should show soldiers that the command cares about their health. Stice also pointed out that, from a command perspective, PHAs give a clear picture of the Army's general health and wellness.
Because the 996th ASMC is a medical unit, there are also more benefits for a regularly-scheduled PHA. According to Thompson, “We’re unique because we’re a medical company. We’re actually self-performing our own PHA this year, and what it’s going to do for us is allow our dentists, our medics, our lab techs, and our providers to get hands-on training, doing a PHA with our own Unit, so that in the future, we go out and support other units that needed help with PHAs.”
How has the PHA changed? According to Winchester, the PHA has gotten quicker and more organized since the beginning of implementation, and the inclusion of an online questionnaire, that can be done at home, speeds up the process.
Why do we have to have a PHA every year? Stice, Winchester, and Thompson all agreed that an annual schedule (which is the current implementation) is best. Stice points out that a soldier's health can change rapidly, especially with dental health, and should be monitored regularly to make sure that all soldiers are mission-ready at all times.
Stice also gives an example of why PHAs are important for mission readiness saying that a soldier with an unforeseen health issue, maybe hearing per se, may be turned away from deployment during pre-deployment health checks. PHAs may have caught this health issue, and given the soldier time to reclassify into another Military Occupational Specialty with a different standard for hearing health, and they could have been deployed. Catching these health issues ahead of time also takes pressure off of the command.
What can we expect in the future of the PHA? Thompson stated that one day we might be able to do the PHA without spending extra money to hire contracted healthcare professionals, and instead use Army medical personnel. He also, however, said the if the medical personnel were always doing PHAs, they wouldn’t have time to do other training.
Stice is confident in the PHA, saying that it will continue to evolve and get more efficient, fine-tuned, and less painful. He continues, saying that the care we make sure our soldiers get is part of what makes our Army the best Army in the world.
| Date Taken: | 01.11.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 01.12.2014 21:29 |
| Story ID: | 119079 |
| Location: | PHOENIX, AZ, US |
| Web Views: | 207 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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