DEFENSE HEALTH HEADQUARTERS, FALLS CHURCH, VA.—The Army Career Program (CP) 53 (Medical) Planning Board (CPPB) met on Aug. 14-15, 2019, to discuss issues related to CP53 medical careerists with emphasis on Medical Readiness.
Mr. Richard Beauchemin, CP53 Functional Chief Representative (FCR) and Vice Chair of the board, hosted the planning board, with Voting Members represented from ACOMs, ACSSs, and DRUs. These Voting Members are primarily from their Command’s Surgeon Office.
The theme of the FY19 CPPB is “Medical Readiness – Forging the CP53 Path to Meet the New Army Medical Readiness Mission.” The CPPB purpose is providing the Army and our Functional Chief (FC) with a systematic process to identify and resolve issues, determine priorities, and make decisions in support of the Civilian Strategic Human Capital Plan (SHCP) and succession planning as related to the Army’s medical Civilian workforce.
While addressing the Army’s human capital priorities, Mr. Michael Reheuser, Assistant G-1 (Civilian Personnel) (AG-1(CP), Office of the Army Chief of Staff, G-1, informed the voting members of his partnership with Senior Executive Service Leaders to identify best practices within the Army for onboarding, recruiting and hiring, and career development. His office continues to pursue shorter Civilian time to hire, improve talent management, and the establishment of the Secretary of the Army’s newly approved Army Career Development Program (ACDP) for apprentices.
Working closely with the AG-1(CP) Office, CP53 is the Army's lead for career management and proponency for the medical Civilian workforce. The critical workforce needs highly professional and certified personnel. Ongoing training, education, and professional development (TE&PD) of medical Civilians is needed to ensure commands have the right personnel with the right skills at the right place and right time to support the Army medical mission requirements.
CP53 is the largest of the Army's 32 CPs with over 33,500 medical civilians, which is 12 percent of the Army's 275,000 plus Civilians. Army medical civilians serve in 91 occupational series across all Army Commands—in virtually every clinical, laboratory, technical or administrative role found in hospital, clinics, Command Surgeon’s Offices, and specialty program across the Army’s footprint. The highest percentage of medical Careerists serve in U.S. Army Medical Command, but CP53 has medical civilians in every ACOM, ASCC, and DRU.
In addition to the CP53 careerists serving in medical treatment facilities, CP53 includes medical careerists in a number of important programs, e.g., Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention; Ready and Resilient (R2); Family Advocacy, and Army Substance Abuse Programs. CP53 is growing with medical careerists in the Army’s expanding Holistic Health-to-Fitness Program (Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Dieticians) and in the proposed Medical Readiness Directorates (MRDs) to be aligned to several Army commands.
A number of changes and concerns in some of the areas under the purview of the planning board were highlighted during the meeting.
--Dr. James Helis, Director of SHARP/R2, Office of the Army Chief of Staff, G-1, along with Ms. Carla Colson, Director of Installation Services, and COL Steve Lewis, Chief, Family Program Branch and HQDA Family Advocacy Program Manager, both of the Office of the Army Chief of Staff for Installation Management, provided program updates to the Voting Members.
--Each of the Army’s 32 CPs are required to conduct an annual CPPB and the goals of Army CPPBs are extensive. They include Civilian workforce capability and readiness; Civilian Training, Education, and Development System (ACTEDS) requirements and ACTEDS plans; strategies in reducing gaps in our workforce resources; and review and recommend action for proposals to modify policy and practices.
--The boards also monitor and annually review the state of the strategic environment, workforce and demographic diversity trends, and competency assessments. Gaps in recruitment, personnel retention, and development initiatives are identified to address current and future mission requirements and strategic human capital plans.
--This planning board relates to Military Health System (MHS) Transformation and transition of administrative management of hospitals and clinics to the Defense Health Agency (DHA).
--The Board Members received updates of the Army Medicine Transition from Ms. Alicia English, Office of the Surgeon General, and COL John Melton, Commander of the Womack Army Medical Center (first Army Medical Center to transition to DHA).
--To aid the CP53 Voting Members in understanding the current state and challenges in meeting future Army Medical Department (AMEDD) missions, Mr. John Ramiccio, Deputy, G-3/5/7 for the Office of the Surgeon General and U.S. Army Medical Command, briefed the AMEDD Service lines capability gaps and seams.
--To supplement this overview, Ms. Carolyn Collins, Army CP53 Program Manager, updated the Voting Members on the CP53 enterprise efforts aligned to the Civilian Life-Cycle Model (workforce assessments, acquiring and hiring personnel, training and education, and workforce sustainment), funding, communication, and program assessment.
--The boards’ final goal is to monitor cost data, performance metrics, and related trends to make investment decisions on training, education, and professional development opportunities.
--Ms. Lisa Rycroft, Chief, Civilian Training and Leader Development Division, Office of the Army Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, informed the board the Army’s FY20 budget to support the 32 CPs for this requirement was cut by 30 percent. As such, the CPs must critically validate and prioritize all training requirements to achieve the most effective and efficient use of the limited resources.
Beyond obtaining an understanding of the current and future Army’s medical missions and program efforts, the CP53 CPPB produces several immediate products. One is a Command CP53 Program Review presented to the board by the Voting Members for their perspective commands, to include their workforce, emerging missions, training, best practices, challenges, and opportunities. These reviews provided the FCR/Vice Chair the Commands’ prioritized program requirements and timelines and a way ahead for future CP53 support.
This is of special importance, as the CP53 Proponency Office must draft and submit the Army CP53 Operations and Maintenance FY22-26 Programming Objective Memorandum (POM) and FY20 budget estimates to Army G-3/5/7, which is due mid-September. The last tasking of the board is to determine and execute policy and procedures in FY 20 schedule of future strategic workforce assessments, which is done in partnership with Army commands.
The CP53 planning board on-site and virtual future forums are forecasted for semi-annual engagements, with the next target date for the on-site planning board projected for May 2020. A semi-annual supporting Council of Colonels meeting takes place during the other two quarters of the year, with the first occurring in February 2020.
An important issue for military medical treatment facilities is ensuring maximum contribution of medical Civilians to military readiness, which is broader than healthcare delivery. The 33,500 medical Civilians are critical to healthcare now, and the CP53 Civilian workforce will remain a key linchpin in ensuring the Army’s current and future readiness goals can be realized.
Army Chief of Staff James C. McConville has established Army people as his top priority. This priority has three pillars to support it: readiness, modernization and reform. The proactive CP53 planning board is addressing all three of these pillars—the intent is highly quality and trained medical Civilians to support the Army’s prioritized medical missions and needs of Soldiers and their families.