June 12, 2008 - The U.S. Army has asked NRH to assess their current rehabilitation practices and to make recommendations for improving the quality and delivery of care given to injured soldiers and other military personnel in need of rehabilitation services.

To begin the review process, a team of professionals from NRH will fly to Germany to work with the U.S. Army's Europe Regional Medical Command (ERMC). The ERMC operates 15 ambulatory care centers in Germany which are the initial treatment sites for injured soldiers from Iraq. These ambulatory centers not only diagnose and provide treatment, but they also determine the location of ongoing care for those soldiers wounded overseas.

During their two-week stay in Germany, the NRH team will travel to several of the ERMC locations to assess their current rehabilitation practices. Bringing over 80 years of experience in PTSD, traumatic brain injury, injury prevention, clinical rehabilitation and rehab management,  the team will look at selected "best practices" that may exist at particular sites and share these best practices between locations.

"NRH has a long history of working with the U.S. Military," notes NRH President and CEO Edward A. Eckenhoff. "We are proud to share more than two decades of outpatient rehabilitation expertise with the Army's ambulatory centers in Germany, especially as they are critical to the care of those injured in Iraq."

In addition, the NRH team will develop benchmarking opportunities to measure sites against and make recommendations, where applicable, to improve the existing models of care delivery and related support processes. "All of this," says team leader John Brickley, head of NRH's outpatient network, "will help us achieve our goal of providing the Army with recommendations to improve the rehabilitation care for our injured soldiers, in particular, and help to maximize their recovery, promote safe return to maximum function, and improve their quality of life."