The Executive Summary:  Defense Health Agency and the Military Health System

The Executive Summary:  Defense Health Agency and the Military Health System

Introduction

Defense Health Agency is a joint military combat support agency that is mandated with the responsibility of delivering medical care to military personnel during times of war and peace.  DHA works closely with the Military Health System to provide affordable and high-quality healthcare services to the servicemen and women plus their families (Defense Health Agency Report,2017). The agency operated under a quadruple objective, namely; increased readiness, better healthcare, better care, and lower cost. The initiative currently provides medical, pharmacy, and dental programs to more than 9.4 million both active and retired military personnel and their families globally.

Military Health System, otherwise referred to as MHS, is an integrated system that operates globally to provide healthcare to the U.S. military personnel and their families. This system also caters to the retired staff. It is the nation’s most extensive health benefit plan catering for injuries at battlefields, infectious diseases in combat, and care for veterans.

Current state and goals.

Operating under a budget of $52 billion, the military health system is serving over 9.4 million active-duty personnel. There are a total of 147,217 staff employed by this system to work in all of the 51 hospitals, 247 dental clinics, and 381 clinics (Defense Health Agency Report,2017). The goals are to;

1. Improvement of patient satisfaction by 13%.
2. Drive efficiency and improve productivity by 9%
3. Improve punctuality and responsiveness by 12%.
4. Improve proficiency of employees 60 %
5. Boost innovation by 35%
6. Improvement of management of over boarding by decreasing time by 20%
7. Expansion of patient safety program
8. Development of Defense health agency

Leadership actions that will be taken to accomplish your goals. 

Goal: Improvement of patient satisfaction by 13%.

Actions

Improved patient satisfaction by way of communication in the triage/waiting room.                             Survey customer service and responsiveness quarterly.

Set a time limit on how long there can be a lapse in communication with the patient who is waiting via Standard operating Procedure (SOP).

Set the protocol to avoid adverse consequences for patients who reschedule due to the conflicting schedules of the healthcare provider’s tardiness.

Set a policy for waiting times through SOP

Goal: Drive efficiency and improve productivity by 9%

Actions

Conduct organization-wide training on effective communication between staff to staff and staff to patient

Improve communication between staff members to encourage teamwork and accountability.  Conduct an internal survey among all staff to assess efforts in improving communication

Goal: Improve punctuality and responsiveness by 12%.

Action: Improve communication between staff members to encourage teamwork and accountability.  Conduct an internal survey among all staff to assess efforts in improving communication

Goal: Improve proficiency of employees 60 %

Actions

This expected goal is that the consolidation of these learning entities facilitates consistent, effective, and efficient delivery of MHS education and training while implementing a common language, use of tools, and robust process improvement where success can be tracked.

Establish a Defense Medical Readiness Training Institute (DMRTI): Premier training institute advocates for process improvement and participation in course development across services.

Improve Leadership, Education, Analysis, Development, and Sustainment (LEADS): Leadership development program for MHS employees

Create Medical Education and Training Campus (METC): State-of-the-art education campus for the Department of Defense that provides multiple services and training to enlisted medical personnel.

Goal: Boost innovation by 35%

Action: Make efforts to increase cross-service training opportunities, education, and training by 35%.

Goal: Improvement of management of over boarding by decreasing time by 20%

Actions

Decrease civilian hiring and onboarding time by 20%

Expand noncompetitive hiring authorities by 20%

Elucidate agency positions descriptions

Goal: Expansion of patient safety program

Actions

Build competencies and enhance skills of patient safety managers and foster organizational commitment. Additionally, develop and implement a guide for joint-base and international/location-specific clinics to prioritize locale-specific patient safety improvement initiatives.

Increase optimal outcomes and influence positive health behaviors through the joint decision making and care plan tracking through the patient portal and routine visits. Track individual portal utilization and measure adherence to care plans by health behaviors and outcomes.

Goal: Improvement of Defense health agency

Actions

Continue to encourage Military Treatment Facilities (MTF’s) to channel pharmacy workloads to other MTF’s or mail order.

Make training mandatory for all specialists to complete within six months as the more specialists available, the more the service may be utilized by less experienced personnel, and the savings will continue to increase

Adding five new DoD Organizations to the network of innovations and initiatives directly resulting in operational efficiencies, increased capabilities, enhanced the enterprise-wide knowledge base, and financial savings.

Questions Anticipated

What resources do you need to accomplish your goals?

The accomplishment of all these goals requires adequate funding. Projects such as training of personnel and availing of technologically advanced medical equipment for innovation are costly. They, therefore, need the federal government to increase budget allocation to the military health agency.

What obstacles will you face in implementing your plan?

The most probable obstacle facing the implementation of these goals is budget cuts under the looming increased cost of medical care.

What is your probability of success?

The approximate probability of success for this strategic plan sits at 0.75, with the remaining 0.25 attributed to inconveniences that may arise from procurement delays, more time needed to train personnel, and lastly, budget cuts.

Reference

Defense Health Agency Report, 2017. Available at; https://www.health.mil/About-MHS