The Defense Innovation Unit is bringing together the best of commercially available artificial intelligence technology and the Defense Department’s vast cache of archived medical data to teach computers how to identify cancers and other medical irregularities.

The result will be new tools medical professionals can use to more accurately and more quickly identify medical issues in patients.

The new DIU project, called “Predictive Health,” also involves the Defense Health Agency, three private-sector businesses and the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

The new capability directly supports the development of the JAIC’s warfighter health initiative, which is working with the Defense Health Agency and the military services to field AI solutions that are aimed at transforming military health care. The JAIC is also providing the funding and adding technical expertise for the broader initiative. 

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The body of missing Fort Hood soldier Elder Fernandes was found on Tuesday night, more than one week after the 23-year-old sergeant was last seen.

The news was first announced by the family’s attorney Natalie Khawam on Wednesday. It was confirmed by Fort Hood, a military base in Killeen, Texas, later in the afternoon.

Fort Hood said Fernandes, a native of Brockton, Mass., was found deceased near Lake Polk in Temple, Texas, about 30 miles from the base. He had been reported missing on Aug. 18.

“Our worst nightmare has happened,” Khawam said.

The base said in a statement on Friday that Fernandes was last seen by members of his unit at a residence in Killeen, Texas. on Aug. 17 and did not report to work the following day as scheduled. It added that Fernandes’ only known vehicle was located on base at his unit’s parking lot, and information gathered from other soldiers suggested he had left on his own accord.

Fort Hood said Fernandes’ disappearance sparked a thorough search in Central Texas, with members of his base scouring hospitals and hotels. His family also traveled from Massachusetts to Texas to help look for him.

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When the Army’s top civilian leader said Fort Hood has one of the highest rates of murder, sexual assault and harassment in the Army, he was using statistics from the Army’s three largest populated installations, which includes the local post.

“The numbers are high here. They are the highest, the most cases for sexual assault and harassment murders for our entire formation of the U.S. Army,” Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy said during an Aug. 6 news conference at Fort Hood. “So we are getting an outside look to help us to get to those root causes and understand so that we can make those changes with the point of emphasis being that we are going to put every resource and all of the energy we can to this entire institution behind fixing these problems.”

McCarthy visited Fort Hood and Killeen earlier this month to speak with Army leaders, soldiers, local government leaders and nonprofit leaders from groups such as the local NAACP and League of United Latin American Citizens chapters. The visit was in response to the death of Spc. Vanessa Guillen, a 3rd Cavalry Regiment soldier.

The secretary mentioned higher numbers of criminal acts committed on Fort Hood was a comparison with two other large Army installations: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), in Washington state, said Col. Catherine Wilkinson, spokeswoman for the secretary, by email. The data set he was referring to shows that from 2015 to 2019, Fort Hood had, on average, more violent and non-violent felonies potentially committed (some cases are ongoing) by soldiers when compared to the other two Army posts.

Between 2015 and 2019, Fort Hood averaged 129 violent felonies a year, which included homicides, violent sex crimes, kidnapping, robbery and aggravated assault, Wilkinson said. Fort Bragg averaged 90 per year and JBLM averaged 109 per year.

Non-violent felonies — such as drug crimes, failure to obey general order, desertion, larceny, other sex crimes and drunk driving with personal injury, among others — averaged 940 per year for Fort Hood. Bragg averaged 822 and JBLM 720.

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The Defense Department began issuing Next Generation Uniformed Services Identification Cards on July 31, 2020, the first time since 1993 that changes to the card have been made.

Michael Sorrento, director of the Defense Manpower Data Center, discussed the new ID cards that are for military family members, retirees and other eligible card holders.

The new ID card transitions the current laminated paper card to much more durable plastic material, similar to that used for the common access cards used by military members and DOD civilians, he said.

Also, the new ID cards feature enhanced security measures that will reduce the likelihood of them being compromised, Sorrento said.

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