U.S. Army Col. Owen L. Roberts assumed leadership of the newly established Operational Medical Systems Program Management Office in early 2025. As part of the Defense Health Agency, OPMED acts as the Department of Defense’s leading force in medical development and acquisition, working to enhance Warfighter lethality and readiness. The project managers on his team develop and deliver next-generation, world-class medical capabilities that empower combatant commanders for Large-Scale Combat Operations, especially in austere environments. Their mission focuses on two key objectives: saving lives on the battlefield and quickly returning injured service members to duty.
As the DoD’s medical community prepares for the 2025 Military Health System Research Symposium next week in Kissimmee, Florida – MHSRS is the DoD’s premier scientific meeting focused on Warfighter medical readiness, performance, expeditionary medicine, and return to duty – Roberts shared his insights into the dynamic capabilities OPMED brings to the table, how their mission is evolving, and what his team is doing to support the U.S. Joint Force.
Changes are rapidly occurring across the DoD. How is the OPMED team managing these changes while continuing its mission to support Warfighters?
COL Roberts: We operate in a very dynamic environment, and we continue to evolve to better meet the needs of leadership within the Department of Defense and our partners in the Joint Force. That said, our focus and our mission haven't changed: we remain the DoD’s premier medical development and acquisition experts, laser-focused on supporting the medics, corpsmen, and medical officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and special forces.
Whether we're managing a product, device, treatment, or project, each begins at a different point in the development process.
However, our ultimate aim remains constant: to provide our military end users with the vital tools they need to save lives during Large-Scale Combat Operations and return injured service members to duty.
These priorities are what we focus on, as individuals and as a team, because it is what the American people expect from military medical providers. We will continue to innovate, improve our processes, and refine our approach to deliver the best medical capabilities available to the Joint Force. In the end, it’s all about improving Warfighter readiness and honing Warfighter lethality for tomorrow’s wars.
What are some of the core focus areas for OPMED as we head toward 2026 and beyond?
COL Roberts: First, we are working to streamline and improve the processes that directly support the medics and medical officers at the front lines. For OPMED, that means making some tough choices to better apply our resources toward projects that address a current capability gap and are most beneficial to end users in a time- and resource-constrained environment.
Second, we continue to focus on Warfighter readiness and lethality. Our project management portfolios – blood products, brain health, expeditionary medicine, rapid diagnostics, and force health protection, to name a few – are all tailored to meet the needs of medical providers at and near the front lines. Our goal is to develop, acquire, and field the tools that improve readiness at the operational level and increase lethality at the tactical level – as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible.
We are mindful that 2026 (and, for that matter, the years to come) is not a finish line, but a benchmark. The key to our success is to continuously develop the devices, treatments, and capabilities that will meet the needs of the DoD and the military medical community.
How is OPMED expanding its scope to meet the needs of that broader DoD medical community?
COL Roberts: That’s a great question, and the answer is twofold.
One, we have a much wider aperture now that we have realigned to the Defense Health Agency. Our stakeholders are no longer primarily within one service, as was the case when we existed as part of the Department of the Army. OPMED’s projects and portfolios must be necessarily broad to meet the needs of the individual services, but also tailored to meet the specific needs of medical providers at the front lines, regardless of the color of their uniforms. It is a new challenge, but one that we are particularly well-suited for, given the reach we have within the DoD.
Two, we are very proactive in our outreach, while remaining flexible and responsive to urgent needs. For example, just this Spring, we participated in two Joint Force, international, U.S.-led exercises in the Philippines and Lithuania. We met with and supported key stakeholders in the INDOPACOM and EUCOM combatant commands during Balikatan 25 and DEFENDER 25, respectively. These were premier events that both raised awareness of our mission and gave us a much better understanding of the challenges end users face in tactical, austere environments. Moreover, we can and do routinely support the urgent needs of the Joint Force, up to and including the medical team that supports the Executive Branch.
Why is it important to have a medical development organization like OPMED, especially given the DoD’s focus on Large-Scale Combat Operations in austere environments?
COL Roberts: I ask myself that question frequently, and the answer drives my mission mindset: OPMED is the avenue for generational advancement within the U.S. military medical community – and we cannot, and will not, fail in that mission.
The projects we manage for the DoD are designed for worldwide use tomorrow, and for at least a few generations to come. From beachheads in the Indo-Pacific to military treatment facilities in the United States, the capabilities we are developing now will someday be in the hands of medics who haven’t even been born yet in 2025.
We take that responsibility seriously, because we don’t know what the future holds – but we will work tirelessly to make sure our partners in the Joint Force are as prepared as possible for the next war, wherever and whenever it happens.
How do you and the OPMED team measure success?
COL Roberts: This comes down to our priorities: Driving innovation in the medical development space; rapidly developing medical solutions for service members; enabling Warfighter readiness and increasing lethality; and managing proactive partnerships inside the DoD and with industry to deliver functional and fieldable technologies and treatments as quickly as possible.
We measure our success by meeting those objectives on a daily, monthly, and quarterly basis, because that is what our Warfighters need and what the American people deserve: medical solutions that not only save lives but also enhance the DoD’s ability to fight and win anywhere in the world.
What are some of the challenges on the horizon, and how is OPMED working to mitigate them?
COL Roberts: This is indeed a challenging world – we see it every day and at every turn. The U.S. is center stage in addressing regional conflicts across several combatant command areas of responsibility in real time. The challenge that OPMED faces, as the DoD’s premier medical development organization, is to increase the speed of delivery while outpacing the technological innovations of our adversaries. We do not have the luxury of embarking on projects that take a decade – the threat environment is evolving far too rapidly for old paradigms.
We address these challenges every day in very deliberate ways. First, we are conducting an expedited and thorough review and assessment of the high-impact programs that meet the immediate needs of Warfighters: blood replacement, oxygen delivery, and combat trauma treatment, to name a few. These lifesaving capabilities are the highest priority for frontline medics and medical organizations at Role 1 (field treatment) and Role 2 (forward support) levels of care.
Second, we are developing stronger ties with end users across the Joint Force to focus on efforts that will yield the greatest return on investment in the shortest time possible. Our project managers routinely meet and engage with the stakeholders who rely on our development expertise. They, in turn, provide invaluable feedback to help our teams refine their processes and quicken the pace of development. It’s all about reaching milestones, securing FDA approvals, and transitioning new products for fielding to make the biggest impact.
Third, we remain acutely aware of conflicts happening across the globe. The DoD has worldwide reach and influence, and at literally any moment, American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines can be called to action, anywhere around the world. At OPMED, our core mission is to develop medical solutions that are functional and fieldable today, in support of our Warfighters. And the team we have in place is ready to deliver.
| Date Taken: | 07.31.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.31.2025 09:50 |
| Story ID: | 544275 |
| Location: | FORT DETRICK, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Operational Medical Systems: Spurring innovation to deliver Joint Force medical solutions – program manager offers key insights ahead of DoD’s premier medical research symposium, by T. T. Parish, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
