Photo By William Townsend | CAMP LEJEUNE, NC – Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune held a ribbon cutting ceremony...... read more read more
Navy Medicine East (NME) — comprised of more than 100 medical centers, hospitals and clinics spanning the eastern hemisphere and 10 global public health activities — achieved many milestones in 2017 in support of its mission as a ready, agile and rapidly responsive medical force that directly supports the Navy and Marine Corps, America’s premier expeditionary forces.
Throughout the year, NME personnel provided mission support to U.S. Northern, Southern, European, Africa, Central and Pacific Commands. This included more than 40,000 cumulative days of deployment days by active-duty personnel in fiscal year 2017.
NME also supported global health engagements and humanitarian missions to include the temporary assignment of health care personnel aboard USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) as part of the disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico. The bulk of the 750 medical staff came from Naval Medical Center (NMC) Portsmouth the Navy's oldest, continuously operating hospital responsible for a patient population of approximately 440,000.
The ability to rapidly augment medical and support personnel needed for a hospital ship deployment within 96 hours underscores Navy Medicine’s role as a medical readiness platform in support of global health.
“Ensuring a medically ready force and the clinical skills sustainment of our health care teams who deliver care on, above and below the sea, and on battlefields is why we exist,” said Rear Adm. Anne Swap, NME commander. “Consistent with the Navy Surgeon General, in these transformational times, providing the best readiness, operational support and health to the force protecting our interests around the world, requires unmatched commitment by all in Navy Medicine. And I’m proud of the unwavering commitment and ongoing contributions by the Navy Medicine East team.”
Making care more convenient
Highlights of the many achievements throughout 2017 include Naval Health Clinic (NHC) Corpus Christi’s introduction of Battlefield Acupuncture Training as an alternative to traditional pain medication. NHC Corpus Christi and its Branch Health Clinics (BHCs) Kingsville and Fort Worth, and detachment in San Antonio provide care to more than 13,000 enrolled patients, including students at the Medical Education and Training Campus at Fort Sam Houston.
NH Jacksonville, the Navy’s third largest hospital, continued to improve patient outcomes, increase readiness, enhance patient satisfaction and improve value with optimal resource utilization through its value-based care pilot. With diabetes and musculoskeletal Integrated Practice Units at its hospital and BHCs Kings Bay and Mayport, care focuses on the results that matter most to patients, with personalized care plans that include the patient's goals.
NHC Patuxent River, in partnership with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC), expanded its telepsychiatry program to its BHCs Dahlgren and Indian Head earlier this year. The telepsychiatry program utilizes secure video teleconferencing technology to virtually connect patients to psychiatric providers at WRNMMC. The program now supports approximately 20 weekly virtual appointments for active duty service members and has reduced the number of needed network referrals by more than 80 percent.
U.S. Naval Hospital (USNH) Naples welcomed its first-of-its-kind embedded Army Medical Home, offering one-stop health care services to U.S. Army commands in the Naples area in March.
NHC Annapolis opened its new, $43.5 million state-of-the-art clinic. The 101,500 square foot clinic blends the latest health care technologies with an environmentally sustainable design for the 14,000 patients who receive care there — including U.S. Navy Academy's brigade of midshipman.
Naval Hospital (NH) Camp Lejeune became the Navy's fourth medical center. The official re-naming as Naval Medicine Center (NMC) Camp Lejeune recognized the enhanced and comprehensive level of care it provides to its 140,000 eligible patients. NMC Camp Lejeune is the only medical center located on a Marine Corps installation.
Responsible for providing care to more than 30 local command across the Iberian Peninsula, USNH Rota medical staff participated in an underway collaboration with the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG-64), home-ported in Rota. The initiative exposes clinicians to the operational environment so they would better understand how clinical decisions impact the line mission of a destroyer.
NHC New England, with more than 25,000 patients enrolled with a primary care manager at one of its facilities in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, held its annual Patient Safety Awareness Week to encourage staff members to test their safety knowledge and to emphasize the need for the safest health care delivery environment possible.
Honing clinical and operational skills
NME continued its investment in honing the clinical and operational skills and training of its active duty health care team to better prepare them to provide life-saving and health sustaining capabilities when deployed to the operational platforms. Students from the Navy’s first graduating class of students under the new Hospital Corps “A” School curriculum began follow-on training at Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (LFHCC), a fully-integrated federal health care facility with a single, combined VA and Navy mission. The new Navy surgeon general initiative at LFHCC combines six weeks of in-patient and out-patient clinical training. The course is one of several Hospital Corps training programs in response to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson’s competence and character priorities that include achieving the best possible performance through learning. The program also responds to the surgeon general’s second readiness goal to achieve maximum future life-saving capabilities and survivability along the continuum of care through training and educational programs.
NH Pensacola, with a patient population of more than 150,000 people across its hospital and 10 BHCs that span five states, became the first military treatment facility to implement Navy Medicine’s Connected Corpsmen in the Community (CCC) proof-of-concept to assess the feasibility of enlisted medical personnel providing care at alternative sites outside the typical hospital or clinic setting. CCC is anchored Navy Medicine’s goal of making health care more convenient for active duty service members.
And 210 personnel graduated from NME's 22 internship, residency and fellowship programs at NMC Portsmouth, NMC Camp Lejeune and NH Jacksonville, ensuring a strong pipeline of medical professionals across the Navy Medicine enterprise.
Every quarter Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (NMCPHC) – Navy Medicine’s global public health arm – developed a dashboard identifying the top public health issues facing the Navy and Marine Corps and impacting readiness. It enabled Navy Medicine leaders to make informed decisions using up to date information and trend analysis. NMCPHC provides leadership and expertise to ensure mission readiness through disease prevention and health promotion in support of the national military strategy.
Ensuring a medically ready force
Through the NME-led Tidewater Military Health System, which brings together McDonald Army Health Center, NMC Portsmouth and U.S. Air Force Hospital Langley, patients received care based on their unique care needs, regardless of service affiliation. The tri-service collaboration continues to improve access to care, remove unnecessary redundancies, reduce variation in care and ultimately improve patient experiences while maintaining fiscal efficiencies.
The staff at NHC Quantico provide a plethora of services to not only Marines in Officer Candidate School and The Basic School on the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, but also all active duty and reserve personnel at its BHC – including the active duty personnel at Washington Navy Yard.
More than 20,000 Marine recruits receive care every year at NH Beaufort, as well as active duty personnel, family members, retirees and veterans.
USNH Naples, which is comprised of the main hospital, the Branch Health Clinic at Capodichino, and a Navy liaison detachment at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, provides health services and support to more than 60 U.S. Navy tenant commands, the USS Mount Whitney (LCC/JCC-20), and forces from the twenty-two nations that comprise the Allied Joint Forces Command, Naples, Italy.
The almost 500 staff members of USNH Sigonella provide high quality, patient-centered care and operational support to approximately 8,500 active duty, family members, NATO forces, retirees, and other eligible patients through international collaboration and status of force agreements. USNH Sigonella also encompasses a satellite clinic and two branch clinics located in Souda Bay, Greece and the Kingdom of Bahrain.
USNH Guantanamo Bay maintains one the highest patient satisfaction rates among all military treatment facilities in the Navy has earned the Navy Surgeon General’s Blue H Gold Star award three consecutive years, and operates the only home health care program in the Navy. The staff provides health care in an isolated and remote duty station for a population of approximately 6,000 residents.
While the milestones and achievements by NME's team of 26,500 health care professionals and support personnel responsible for the care of more than 1 million patients are too numerous to list, these examples serve to underscore its unwavering commitment to the health and well-being of Sailors, Marines and their families.
NME oversees the delivery of medical, dental and other health care services in the eastern hemisphere—including the Tidewater Military Health System. Plus, its public health activities extend globally. For more information, visit www.med.navy.mil/sites/nme.
Navy Medicine is a global health care network of 63,000 personnel that provide health care support to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, their families and veterans in high operational tempo environments, at expeditionary medical facilities, medical treatment facilities, hospitals, clinics, hospital ships and research units around the world.
| Date Taken: | 12.19.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 12.19.2017 15:21 |
| Story ID: | 259490 |
| Location: | PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 601 |
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