Photo By Carrie Petershagen | Representatives from Fairchild Air Force Base discuss how their experience launching...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash. — Puget Sound Military Health System (MHS) recently hosted a multidisciplinary group from the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Army, Navy, Air Force, and representatives from local military medical treatment facilities (MTF) to discuss ways to better standardize patient appointing processes. Participants discussed a number of topics, including how the MTFs based in Washington state utilize the Department of Defense’s new electronic health record, MHS GENESIS for patient appointments and referrals.
Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Wash., and the MTFs in Puget Sound MHS: Naval Health Clinic Oak Harbor, Naval Hospital Bremerton and Madigan Army Medical Center, were the first to launch MHS GENESIS in 2017. DHA is looking to representatives from these hospitals and clinics to better define processes before deploying MHS GENESIS to other military hospitals next year.
The MTFs within Puget Sound MHS also share a centralized call center where TRICARE beneficiaries can schedule medical appointments with most local military clinics.
"We have a stellar team of professionals representing each of our market hospitals, who are working to standardize our medical appointing processes,” said Gary Herschberger, director of business operations for Puget Sound MHS. “Our goal is to improve timely access to care and increase patient satisfaction."
The Chief of Clinical Business Operations from DHA, Regina Julian, led the discussions. The team discussed current policies for scheduling medical appointments and how they may affect patients receiving the right care, with the right provider, at the right time. The participants then looked for consensus to build recommendations for any identified issues.
“One of the goals of the MHS transformation is to enhance patient experience, access and value while eliminating unwarranted variance among MTFs through the use of approved standard processes,” Julian said.
DHA is leading efforts to transform the Military Health System and will utilize market offices like Puget Sound MHS. The standardization of processes during the launch of MHS GENESIS is just one example of how geographically aligned MTFs will work together for the benefit of the patient.
“In order to successfully implement MHS GENESIS, we must use standard processes. We brought all the experts together to address outstanding issues,” Julian said. “We believe this collaboration effort is the best model to address MHS GENESIS issues in the future.”
About the Puget Sound MHS
The Puget Sound Military Health System is an integrated health care market that includes Army, Navy and Air Force hospitals and clinics in Western Washington. They provide care to more than 281,000 local TRICARE beneficiaries.
About the Defense Health Agency
The Defense Health Agency (DHA) is a joint, integrated Combat Support Agency that enables the Army, Navy, and Air Force medical services to provide a medically ready force and ready medical force to Combatant Commands in both peacetime and wartime. The DHA supports the delivery of integrated, affordable, and high quality health services to Military Health System (MHS) beneficiaries and is responsible for driving greater integration of clinical and business processes across the MHS.
| Date Taken: | 11.27.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 12.20.2018 17:11 |
| Story ID: | 304670 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 161 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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