Awards
TMA Wins Awards for Beneficiary Education Efforts
TRICARE Management Activity (TMA) educational efforts won two prestigious awards competitions in June.
The National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) recognized the 2011 TRICARE Pharmacy Home Delivery campaign with a first place “Blue Pencil” award in the highly contested “Promotional Campaigns” category. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) also recognized the Home Delivery campaign in its Silver Anvil competition. TRICARE received the second place Silver Anvil Award of Excellence in the Marketing Consumer Services, Health Care category.
“These awards are the result of hard work and dedication by TRICARE Beneficiary Education staff, the Pharmacy Operations Division and our contract partners,” said S. Dian Lawhon, Director of Beneficiary Education and Support, TRICARE Management Activity. “The Home Delivery campaign contributed to a 40 percent increase in Home Delivery use since 2010. Beneficiaries switching from retail pharmacies to Home Delivery saved TRICARE and the Department of Defense an estimated $40 million in 2011.”
The 2011 Home Delivery campaign also won awards earlier this year, including platinum in the Hermes and MarCom Award competitions, both sponsored by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, and third place in the Magellan Awards, sponsored by the League of American Communications Professionals.
The NAGC Blue Pencil Awards salute superior communications efforts of government agencies and recognizes the people who create them. The NAGC is a national not-for-profit professional network of federal, state and local government employees who disseminate information within and outside government.
The PRSA annually awards the Silver Anvil, symbolizing the forging of public opinion, to organizations that have successfully addressed a contemporary issue with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness. The PRSA is the world’s largest and foremost organization of public relations professionals.
Learn more about the TRICARE Pharmacy Home Delivery program at www.tricare.mil/homedelivery.
TMA's Elan Green Selected as a 2012 Rocky Mountain Eagle Award Winner
TRICARE Management Activity (TMA) proudly announces Ms. Elan Green as the recipient of the Colorado Federal Executive Board annual Rocky Mountain Eagle Award.
Ms. Green, a health policy analyst with TMA in Aurora, Colo., is being recognized for her work in the development and implementation of new provisions improving the TRICARE policy for home infusion therapy. The new provisions reduce beneficiaries’ cost-shares and out-of-pocket cost for medications. They are also expected to save the federal government’s Defense Health Program $72.8 million over a six-year period.
“Ms. Green demonstrated the leadership qualities of listening, persistence, and overcoming challenges with a positive attitude,” said Ann Fazzini, Ms. Green’s supervisor and TRICARE chief of medical benefits and reimbursement. “She was resilient, displayed and shared her knowledge of the policy with others, built consensus, and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to implementing this complex health care benefit.”
The Rocky Mountain Eagle Awards are given to federal employees in the state of Colorado to recognize outstanding achievements in public service. Ms. Green is being recognized in the individual special projects category.
>>Learn More about the 2012 Rocky Mountain Eagle Awards
Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal Finalists
Heidi King, deputy director of the Department of Defense Patient Safety Program, and Dr. James Battles, Social Science Analyst for Patient Safety at the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, were recognized today as finalists for the Service to America Medal, for developing and implementing the innovative team training system Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and
Patient Safety, or TeamSTEPPS®.
The Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service, are awarded annually to outstanding federal employees whose accomplishments have
made a significant difference in the lives of Americans.
King and Battles launched their interagency partnership in 2004, in response to the Institute of Medicine’s To Err is Human report, which found that preventable medical errors cause
more than 98,000 deaths and cost $17-$29 billion annually. The report identified ineffective teamwork among health care professionals as a key contributor to these costs.
In response, King and Battles assembled a multidisciplinary team of more than 100 experts to develop the TeamSTEPPS program. In 2007, the finalists launched the
TeamSTEPPS National Implementation Project, a strategic effort to rapidly disseminate TeamSTEPPS across both military and civilian health care systems
while building a national infrastructure to ensure sustainment.
Within DoD, King led the:
- Implementation of TeamSTEPPS across the Services. By 2011, TeamSTEPPS had reached over 80 percent of DoD
health care facilities across Army, Navy and Air Force.
- Spread of TeamSTEPPS abroad. In 2008, DoD combat medical support units in Iraq implemented TeamSTEPPS, leading
to a 65 percent reduction in communication-related errors and an 85 percent decrease in medication/transfusion errors.
- Establishment of six national regional training centers to advance the science of medical teamwork and create a corps of
TeamSTEPPS “Masters” to lead the implementation effort.
Thanks to the leadership of King and Battles, TeamSTEPPS has gained international recognition as the gold standard for eliminating preventable patient harm and transforming
health care to a culture of safety through team-based care.
>>Learn More about the Service to America Medals
>>Learn more about TeamSTEPPS