Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH), including its five branch health clinics on the island of Oahu, will transition to the Defense Health Agency (DHA) between Oct. 1, 2019 and Sept. 30, 2021.
To support NHCH’s transition, Navy Medicine is establishing a co-located Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC). Navy Medicine, through the NMRTC, retains command and control of the uniformed medical force and maintains responsibility for operational readiness. This includes the medical readiness of Sailors and Marines, as well as the clinical readiness of the medical force.
NMRTCs will report to Naval Medical Forces Atlantic (NMFA) and Pacific (NMFP), formerly known as Navy Medicine East and West, which in turn are accountable to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
Capt. Kimberly Zuzelski, commanding officer of NHCH, will serve as both the MTF director under the DHA, and the NMRTC commanding officer under Navy Medicine.
“Readiness is Navy’s top priority,” said Zuzelski. “The survivability of our personnel in the warfighting environment requires us to maintain an operationally ready medical force. The NMRTC will ensure our Sailors are ready to deploy and save lives at a moment’s notice.”
The transition of administration and management will be seamless to patients, with little or no immediate impact to their experience, access, scope of current services, or quality of medical care.
“The multi service market on Oahu is nothing new to our beneficiaries,” said Zuzelski. “Military healthcare in Hawaii has essentially been operating as one market the past few years through partnerships such as joint staffing, centralized referral management, and call centers. The transition will increase efficiency by standardizing and creating consistency across military services, ensuring our patients receive the same exceptional level of care regardless of where they are seen. The transition will be transparent to our beneficiaries.”
The National Defense Authorization Acts for Fiscal Years 2017, 2018, and 2019 require the Military Departments to transition administration and management of military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) to the DHA no later than Sept. 30, 2021. This transition should provide a more consistent experience of health care across the Military Health System.
While DHA will be responsible for health care delivery and business operations, Navy Medicine will retain principal responsibility for operational readiness of the medical force and a Naval Officer will continue to manage NHCH's administration and management.
NHCH will help meet the needs of operational commanders. Survivability of Navy and Marine Corps personnel in future warfighting environments requires a medical force that’s ready to immediately deploy with the operationally relevant skills to save lives.
NHCH is dedicated to ensuring our warfighters, and military and civilian staff who support them, are ready to meet the operational missions ahead while maintaining a ready medical force that delivers highly reliable, patient-centered care to warfighters and their families from the heart of the Pacific.
| Date Taken: | 10.01.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 10.03.2019 15:50 |
| Story ID: | 345863 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 493 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Naval Health Clinic Hawaii to Stand up Navy Medicine Readiness Training Command as they Transition to Defense Health Agency, by Macy Harris, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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