Navy's ORION Program Aims to Connect Sailors, Marines with Resources Following Trauma - USNI News...

A program within Navy medicine, born out of fatal Western Pacific collisions in 2017, wants to connect sailors with resources following non-combat-related trauma.

Organizational Incident Operational Nexus, called ORION, is a Bureau of Medicine and Surgery program following the separate collisions of guided-missile destroyers USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John McCain (DDG-56) that resulted in the death of 17 sailors. Since its inception, the program has helped 2,200 sailors deal with non-combat trauma, according to the service.

ORION fills a gap identified after the two collisions, said Adeline Ong, director of the Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control. There were a myriad of resources in the acute response to the collisions, targeted to help sailors with the psychological stress from the traumatic event. But what BUMED did not have was a way to track sailors and help them connect with resources if they needed them later, Ong told USNI News.