Health committee  Pardon me?

Health committee  As evidence develops for any particular treatment methodology, we are prepared to investigate whether or not those treatment methodologies may be applicable to Canadian Forces members if it's for their well-being.

Health committee  We haven't specifically been approached by a province. But certainly, we participate with the Treasury Board CIO on a committee that is looking at, from a federal government perspective, where we should be going with electronic health records. They do look at our health records and try to capture the lessons that we have learned as we've implemented these health records.

Health committee  We can access any soldier's record from anywhere that we have a base, including overseas.

Health committee  We have some very strict access rules as to who can access which parts of the health records. But yes, somebody that has the access authorities on a base can access a member's record.

Health committee  That's the situation. We look after them in our clinics; however, occasionally there may be somebody who requires some in-patient care, in which case we would arrange for them to be seen in a civilian hospital.

Health committee  At the present time we do not use naturopaths in the care of Canadian Forces personnel. The Canadian Forces follows a program of evidence-based care. We are certainly in a position where we will review any evidence that is available and make determinations as to whether or not the evidence would support certain types of care being provided.

Health committee  If there's a requirement for in-patient care, then we would be organizing that through the local civilian hospitals in the province where the individual resides.

Health committee  At the present time we have both uniformed and civilian psychiatrists who work in our mental health clinics or who work in our operational trauma support centres. We have seven centres that are specifically set up to help with operational stress injuries like post-traumatic stress disorder, and in those facilities we have military and civilian psychiatrists.

Health committee  Yes. The situation is that we don't have any static hospitals in Canada at this point in time. If a patient becomes emergently ill they may be seen by one of our clinicians, initially on the base. That could be a physician, a nurse practitioner, or a physician assistant, who would assess the patient and make a determination as to whether or not a higher level of care is required, in which case they may be referred to a local civilian hospital.

Health committee  I'm not aware of our actually using that facility for our PTSD patients. Normally, for post-traumatic stress disorder, because of the nature of the illness, we would try to have people in care as close to home as possible and as close to their family support system as possible.

Health committee  Thank you very much for the question. We didn't mention a chiropractor specifically as part of our team within our clinic model, but we do access chiropractic care through the civilian community on a regular basis for personnel suffering from musculoskeletal pain. You're absolutely right about the issue with respect to low back pain, and we actually, recently, just held a week-long task group to look at development of a clinical pathway for low back pain, because it is such an important issue to us.

Health committee  Good morning, everybody. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today to provide an overview of the provision of health services to Canadian Armed Forces' members and respond to your questions pertaining to the scopes of practice of Canadian Forces Health Services Group clinicians.