Photo By Robert Hammer | Susan Orsega, deputy assistant secretary of defense for health services policy and...... read more read more
As military medicine embraces artificial intelligence and digital technology, top Department of War health leaders stressed that strong governance is critical to safely drive innovation to adopt these tools that improve patient outcomes and drive increased military readiness.
During the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium in Nashville, Tennessee, in August 2025, Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of war for health affairs and Ms. Susan Orsega, deputy assistant secretary of war for health services policy and oversight, provided insight into how governance ensures the Military Health System is digitally enabled, safe, interoperable, and aligned with warfighter mission readiness.
Ferrara underscored governance is what translates technology into real outcomes, saying, “We need to deliver a truly integrated, digitally enabled and globally partnered system of readiness and health care … where a medic in CENTCOM can consult a trauma specialist at Walter Reed in seconds.”
Digital Health AI policies, particularly the use and governance of AI, is an area Dr. Ferrara has asked that Orsega prioritize.
“We've got to be prepared for the ever-changing warfare ecosystem,” Orsega said. “It is imperative to be integrating and to be interoperable in those digital health spaces, so that we have those tools from either the battlefield to the bedside.”
Governance is foundationally essential to keep up with rapidly evolving AI, she said, for “the scale, the challenges, the demand, the clear priorities, and policies to focus ourselves strategically, enhancing the operational efficiencies … and looking at the readiness of the force.”
The MHS has established guardrails to ensure the use of AI and other advanced tools are implemented responsibly through the MHS Digital Policy Council, launched in March 2025. In her recent appointment as the chair, Orsega cited the policy as assurance that technology, data, and AI efforts are aligned and governed across the MHS “by streamlining digital priorities, reducing redundancies, and focusing on health data as a readiness tool.”
“The digital policy council is intended to ensure that we take a look at, not pull down, the redundancies,” she said. “At the same time, we want to ensure that we have horizontal synergy across all the services.”
Orsega provided an example of a large organization’s diagnostic oncology AI tool as an essential lesson learned in the need for oversight. The AI system once promised to revolutionize cancer care, but it often produced unsafe or irrelevant recommendations. “The clinicians could not rely on that piece of the AI tool to make clear decisions,” she said.
The failure, she said, was not the technology itself but the absence of efficient oversight, as the tool needed stronger governance, infrastructure, and the ability to be audited to ensure better outcomes and reliability.
By contrast, she pointed to the Cleveland Clinic’s Digital Health Playbook as a guide that provides clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and processes for using digital tools. The playbook provided guidance, “that carves out and identifies everyone's role … in everything from telehealth procedures to how to access digital platforms,” she said, adding that it “provides a good example for us as we look at harnessing AI.”
Safe adoption bolsters readiness
For Ferrara, digital health and governance is inseparable from readiness.
“We’re focused on a mission that cuts across so many sectors — delivering smarter, integrated, data-driven health care for service members and their families,” said Ferrara. “It’s more than a technical conversation; it’s an operational imperative.”
He highlighted the full deployment of MHS GENESIS, the electronic health record that provides a single health record for service members, veterans, and family members, as a digital foundation to readiness.
“This is the backbone of a connected system that allows service members’ medical records to follow them from basic training to the battlefield, and ultimately home, and soon to the VA in one smooth, uninterrupted flow,” Ferrara explained.
With MHS GENESIS in place, Ferrara said the MHS is investing in AI-powered support for PTSD, suicide risk, and traumatic brain injury. He also emphasized that oversight is critical: “It’s not merely about adopting new technologies, but how we strategically integrate them into our workflows to improve patient outcomes and ultimately bolster the readiness of our fighting force,” he said.
Building the guardrails
The MHS Digital Policy Council brings together senior leaders across the services to evaluate emerging technologies, prevent duplication, and direct investments where they are most effective. Since its inception, the council has identified and started reviewing more than 100 AI projects across the MHS.
Orsega outlined four areas where the council provided this much-needed governance stability:
• Policy and process: Tie AI tools to accountability
• Inclusive expertise: Support of clinicians, scientists, and technologists in the room together
• Audit platforms, data integrity, and infrastructure: Foundation for safe use
• Training: Certify health care professionals can use AI tools responsibly.
Critical collaboration
Ferrara and Orsega underscored that collaboration is imperative to effective governance.
“None of this work can succeed in silos,” Ferrara said. “Our public-private partnerships are essential, not just for developing new tools, but for testing, scaling, and governing them responsibly.”
Orsega added that governance extends beyond the Department of War. NATO’s Committee of Chiefs of Military Medical Services, she noted, is already examining digital transformation, biotech, and decision-support systems in multi-domain operations. Collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies is equally critical.
She stressed the importance of preparing “for that ever-changing ecosystem, either homeland or abroad, and it's our battle cry to ensure that we have those right tools, so that we have the right policies and processes and standards in place,” noting that if there is an urgent need to use digital tools, “we feel really comfortable and confident that our tools are reliable and that they're laser precise for that decision in that moment.”
Orsega concluded by encouraging attendees of DHITS — comprised of government, military, and industry health care information technology professionals — “to be a part of the solution.”
“We have a unique opportunity to confront the challenges that lie ahead and to take that bold initiative.”
| Date Taken: | 09.15.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.15.2025 16:34 |
| Story ID: | 548212 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 130 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Harnessing the power of AI governance for warfighter readiness, by Robert Hammer, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
