Navy Surgeon General Hosts Workshop to Explore Future of Military Healthcare

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (NNS) -- The top military and civilian healthcare executives in the Navy met June 7-8 to chart the course in the future of military healthcare for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and their families.

The two-day workshop was led by Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. Matthew L. Nathan at the Center of Naval Analyses at the Mark Center here with the goal of setting a course for the future of healthcare for the naval forces beyond the current conflicts.

"We live in dynamic times," said Nathan. "We must concentrate on bringing more value and jointness while maintaining the high state of medical readiness for our naval forces that our nation demands. When the world dials 9-1-1, it is not to make an appointment."

In an effort to meet that call today and into the future, the military and civilian executive leadership of Navy Medicine explored the challenges and opportunities facing military healthcare in an era of greater fiscal constraints and strategic change.

The goal of the meeting was to set strategic priorities and goals for Navy Medicine to meet in the next 5-10 years. The vision of the Naval medical community is to bring value-based healthcare to all aspects of the nation's maritime forces, ensuring first-rate medical readiness for globally dispersed naval forces and creating an enterprise-wide emphasis on jointness.

"It is often difficult to define what "jointness" really means," said Rear Adm. Bob Kiser, commander, Military Education and Training Campus. "This is the perfect time to have this discussion and show that using the term "jointness" is not just lip service from Navy Medicine. Our leaders are ready to make our mark on this issue, open the doors and commit to rethinking and really engaging on how to achieve this."

Nathan emphasized the need for Navy Medicine leaders to come together and create a common vision.

"We need to harvest your expertise and I expect you all to work together as we work on the central themes of value, jointness and readiness," said Nathan. "But as you do this, always remember Navy Medicine is about so much more than just that. We need to be constantly asking ourselves the tough questions. How are we going to position ourselves to continue to meet the needs of our warfighters? The only way we're going to do that is by focusing on synergy, alignment and keeping our eyes on the environment we're operating in."

In an effort to meet these goals, senior leaders were divided into individual goal teams with specific timelines and clear objectives to developing strategies to achieve success in the key focus areas identified.

"So often you leave these senior level meetings having had great discussions and a true meeting of the minds, but not much else," said Rear Adm. Valentin, commander, Navy Medicine Support Command. "What is so different about this meeting and what I believe will act as a critical change catalyst for Navy Medicine is that the Surgeon General has assigned us homework with clear guidelines and together we will be engaging in our goal teams and will have aligned, measurable proposals in place by the next time we come together."

The leadership will reconvene this fall to brief the plans and solidify the way forward.

"This meeting has been a tremendous leap forward in positioning ourselves to meet emerging challenges that may await us over the horizon," said Joe Marshall, deputy chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for resource management. "This plan will be far-reaching but includes engagement down to the deck plate level. We are definitely on the high road with this strategy-to-task approach."

According to Rear Adm. Thomas Beeman, a reservist who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Lancaster General Health in Lancaster, Pa., this initiative will also lay the foundation for healthcare for reservists in the future as it approaches strategic planning from a business perspective.

"While keeping in mind our unique mission, we are developing a plan that is affordable, flexible and responsive to our various communities," said Beeman. "By testing our strategies against potential scenarios, Navy Medicine is poised to be both flexible and immediate in its response to various exigencies."

Navy Medicine is a global health care network of 63,000 Navy medical personnel around the world who provide high quality health care to more than 1 million eligible beneficiaries. Navy Medicine personnel deploy with Sailors and Marines worldwide, providing critical mission support aboard ship, in the air, under the sea and on the battlefield.



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