24/7 phone help for wounded soldiers

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 24, 2007 11:29:00 EDT

It’s quiet in the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline call center.

Staff and visitors speak in lowered voices. A polite beep informs everyone that someone is on the line. The air is filled with the soft hum of computers and phones.

But the hushed atmosphere belies the busy pace of this new operation. The week before the March 19 opening of the hotline center, this was an empty conference room. In the first three days the call center was operational, the phone lines lit up with 201 calls from soldiers, veterans and their families.

There have even been calls from members of the Air Force and Navy.

For all of them, call center staff members work to find quick solutions.

A sampling:

A mother anxious to meet her wounded son as he arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., got her flight information by calling the hotline. A Vietnam veteran looking for his DD214 papers found help by calling the hotline.

“Here you have the gratification of helping people get what they need and you can see it firsthand,” said David White, the deputy director of the call center.

The Army opened the call center to combat problems that surfaced in the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, particularly the difficulties many had in pursuing medical care and benefits claims.

The Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline, based at Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., opened at 12 hours a day, five days a week, but was to go 24/7 beginning March 26.

“The focus of this is on the wounded and injured and ill soldiers and their families,” said Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne, commanding general of HRC.

The hotline grew out of “kind of a groundswell,” Byrne said.

“Clearly we’ve identified that we have problems, or perceived problems, in health care,” he said. “The senior leadership [of the Army] decided that we need this.”

The center has two key objectives: providing soldiers and their families with the support they need and deserve, and providing feedback to the Army’s top leaders, Byrne said.

“We feel that this is the most important thing we could be doing,” said Col. Ed Mason, the officer in charge of the program. “We’re not going to turn anyone away.”

Byrne said Army leaders had pinpointed the need for improved health care and support before the Walter Reed scandal broke.

“Well before the Walter Reed situation, the senior leaders asked the [inspector general] to do a review of medical support,” he said. “This was already on the senior leaders’ radar screen. Walter Reed just raised the level and provided the impetus to making this happen.”

The call center has 30 phone lines and can take up to 99 callers at a time before reverting to voicemail, said Ricky Gibbons, who manages the call center. It is manned by soldiers, Army civilians and contractors from R&K Engineering Inc. and Serco.

Each customer care representative undergoes a day of training in areas such as privacy, customer service and legal issues, Gibbons said.

When a call comes into the center, the representative starts a case file for the soldier who is the subject of each call, Mason said. The information is forwarded to the operations cell, which analyzes it and forwards the concerns or issues to the appropriate command or department. Callers will receive a call back within 24 hours, even if it’s just to tell them that the request has been received, Mason said.

“We’re the conduit for information,” he said. “We figure out who needs to know and who should take action. We do have a sense of urgency in everything we’re doing.”

Within the next two weeks, a message about the hotline will be sent to all Army Knowledge Online users, and the Army will distribute 10,000 pocket-sized cards with the hotline’s phone number and e-mail address.

“We’re hoping that soldiers that use this number have gone through the appropriate channels,” Byrne said. “We’re not trying to usurp the chain of command. If anything, we’re trying to figure out where the issues are and refer them to the chain of command.”

In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a need for this hotline, but the creation of it is a good step forward, Byrne said.
Additional info

Toll free: (800) 984-8523

Overseas: DSN 312-328-0002

Stateside: DSN 328-0002

E-mail: wsfsupport@conus.army.mil

Ellie