Navy Surgeon General Visits on Heels of Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune’s Renaming as Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune

Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Daja Adams | 170531-N-CY672-001 (CAMP LEJEUNE) -- Vice Adm. Forrest Faison, Navy surgeon general and chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery visits Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune, May 31, 2017. After hosting an all hands call with staff, he received a tour of the facility. (U.S. Navy Photo by Hospital Corpsman Second Class Daja Adams/ Released)  

CAMP LEJEUNE, NC, UNITED STATES

05.31.2017

Story by Michael Cole 

Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune

Vice Adm. Forrest Faison, Navy surgeon general and chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, visited Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune (NHCL), May 31, 2017, on the heels of his approval of the medical treatment facility’s re-naming from a hospital to a medical center. The name change takes effect June 26, 2017.
During the visit, Faison met with the hospital’s board of directors and conducted an all hands call at the military treatment facility where he shared his vision and the operational imperative of the Navy Medicine mission.
“Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune is the focal point for Navy Medicine readiness,” said Faison. “Because of this, and because of every one of you, if the balloon were to go up tonight, I can look into the eyes of every mother and father of our fighting men and women and say, this medical force is ready to save lives.”
The re-naming of the hospital as a medical center recognizes that the institution has achieved a level of service and care provided to its beneficiaries above and beyond a standard hospital.
During the surgeon general’s visit, he presented a command coin to Lt. Cmdr. Matt Gaffagin and Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Tyler Douglass. Douglass led NHCL’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care training team to achieving 100 percent course completion for the corpsmen attached there, the only medical center to achieve this goal.
NHCL is committed to the delivery of high-quality, patient centered care provided to 170,000 beneficiaries. NHCL has undergone a transformation over the last several years adding new services, expanding other areas such as the emergency department, and bringing aboard key new staff that enables the hospital to provide an even higher quality care to the warfighter, their families and veterans than was previously available.
NHCL, and as it transitions to the new Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, will build services and resources that will continually improve access to quality patient care. Most recently, it completed a multi-year maintenance plan renovating the operating rooms and providing better access to specialty clinics decreasing the time between diagnosis and operative care for its patients. With more staff and specialists, the facility will now be able to see more patients, minimizing the need to refer patients to civilian medical facilities. Other enhancements and services such as its newly developed sleep lab were developed with a focus on increasing access to care for all its beneficiaries.
Navy Medicine is a global health care network of 63,000 personnel who provide healthcare support to the Navy, Marine Corps, their families and veterans in high operational tempo environments, at expeditionary medical facilities, medical treatment facilities, hospitals, medical centers, clinics, hospital ships and research units around the world.

• Date Taken: 05.31.2017
• Date Posted: 06.05.2017 12:07
• Story ID: 236376
• Location: CAMP LEJEUNE, NC, US