Cultural Awareness: With support from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, Dixon Center has trained healthcare professionals including the Association of Osteopathic Surgeons, Association of Family Physicians, the Association of Physician Assistants, and the American Orthopedics Association. The result resulted in understanding the unique needs of veterans and their families.
Leveraging Technology: In a business-to-business agreement, Dixon Center is partnering with Equideum Heath, one of the country’s leading healthcare blockchain companies to improve access to quality healthcare for veterans and their families. This partnership has already resulted in two veteran health summits that have attracted thought-leaders across the veteran and healthcare space to identify solutions that will improve wellness outcomes for those touched by military service. Going forward, Dixon Center and Equideum Health are collaborating on an initiative to assist veterans and their families overcome the challenges in accessing both VA and private healthcare.
Assuring Access to Healthcare and Smoking Cessation Support for Veterans and Military Families. Through Dixon Center’s influence funding has been provided to partner organizations in 13 states focusing on access to healthcare and smoking cessation resources for Veterans and military families.
As part of this work partner organizations services include:
• Technology assistance to navigate health care solutions in the community;
• Increased community outreach to Veterans and their families in need of physical wellness and smoking cessation.
• Increase capacity to serve caregivers; and
• Care coordination with emergency assistance so Veterans can access physical healthcare while addressing a wide range of issues affecting their lives including housing, employment, and family stability.
Honoring the Hurt and Their Heroes: This is an annual event sponsored by the University of Chicago that brings awareness to service-connected injuries and the impact it has on veterans, military families, and caregivers. In 2021, Dixon Center was asked to co-sponsor and leverage its experience and understanding of the challenges facing our wounded and disabled veterans and caregivers and spotlight solutions and best practices that allow all veterans to thrive in their communities.
2021 Veterans Symposium-Removing Barriers to Access Part II: This annual event, a continuation of an event that was launched in 2020, also sponsored by the University of Chicago, was an opportunity for thought-leaders and practitioners to discuss recent research findings on how best to support student-veterans and their families. Dixon Center led a discussion on the importance of the Eight Dimensions of Wellness in developing holistic, proven solutions to address the evolving needs of student-veterans.
Advocating on behalf of Veterans and their Families: As a member of both the Clear2Connect Coalition (C2C) and Toxic Exposures in the American Military (TEAM), Dixon Center advocates for solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing veterans. By engaging members of Congress or developing and promoting legislation, Dixon Center is ensuring that 2.7 million veterans who are hearing disabled and the 185,000 veterans suffering from exposure to burn pits have a voice in Washington, D.C.
Dixon Center and Burn Pits 360: Building upon our work with the TEAM Coalition in addressing burn pit exposure, Dixon Center also collaborated with Burn Pits 360, one of the leading organizations in addressing the debilitating and deadly impact of unregulated burn pits to service members deployed across the world. Through our partnership, we advocated to Congress and to the American public on the need for the VA to recognize now the connection between burn pits and respiratory disease and certain cancers.
