WHAT IS DVCIPM?
The impact of poorly managed pain on the US general population is estimated by the Institutes of Medicine at $560 billion annually in increased health care expenses, lost income, and lost productivity. The military is not immune to this disease burden. The DoD chartered the Pain Management Task Force in 2009 to review current military pain practice and make recommendations for a comprehensive pain management strategy. The PMTF Report (May 2010) summarized MHS pain management as lacking synchronicity and plagued by unwarranted variation. The Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management (DVCIPM) has been the sole DoD organization focused entirely on pain management. DVCIPM has evolved from its original structure/focus of an Army team working primarily on the battlefield trauma aspects of pain medicine, to the current tri-service/VHA, multidisciplinary effort working on application of a truly integrative approach to addressing challenges in pain management.
DVCIPM is the DoD’s designated Center of Excellence for Pain Management and serves as the central pain management advisory organization for pain management policy, research, and education & training.
DVCIPM
Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management
4301 Jones Bridge Road
Bldg 28, Room 28-207
Bethesda, MD 20814