Photo By Robert Hammer | Dr. Stephen Ferrara, right, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs,...... read more read more
Hitting the ground running, recently appointed Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Stephen Ferrara visited three military hospitals and clinics in the National Capital Region last week.
He toured Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Malcolm Grow Medical Clinics and Surgery Center at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland; and Naval Health Clinic Quantico, Virginia, the weeks of February 17 and 23.
He spoke with senior leaders and hosted town halls to hear directly from hospital staff.
Ferrara is a retired U.S. Navy doctor who continued to practice medicine after 25 years on active duty until being appointed into his current role on Jan. 20. Prior to his present role he served as the deputy director for clinical operations for the National Capital Region, DOD’s largest health care network. He also served as an interventional radiologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and a Clinical Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Ferrara told staff that he knows “exactly what you’re going through,” as military health care personnel.
“I've been through what you go through, so that's why, first and foremost, I want to thank you for all you do and for all you do to support our service members and their families,” said Ferrara.
Ferrara highlighted his priorities for the MHS: supporting warfighters, supporting readiness and operational missions, and ensuring skill sustainment and force generation.
“Our top priority is supporting our ability to go downrange and support our warfighters. It's important that we provide high-quality health care so the warfighter can focus on their mission and not have to be worried about their family members,” Ferrara said. “The operational mission is the reason we exist. We are a health care system that can go to war and support people either downrange, or getting ready to go downrange, and take care of the loved ones of the people who are downrange.”
“We exist to make sure that we are combat ready, and that everything we do here, whether overseas or at garrison, can trace back to how can we better prepare and be prepared to support the warfighter,” he added.
He noted it’s vital MHS health care professionals maintain their skills and be “at the top of their craft when they’re ready to go. I wish I could meet every single person in the MHS and hear their successes and their challenges and carry that message back and try to help ease their burden … because if you could do that for the hundreds of thousands of people that we have that are working every day to take care of patients and are keeping our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Guardians in the fight—then we would be that much more of a force to be reckoned with.”
He compared health care to an ecosystem. “For a surgeon to wield the scalpel, you need a patient admin person to check that patient in and generate a wristband. You need a biomed tech making sure that the instruments are sterile. You need environmental services making sure that the hospital is clean and that infection control measures are met. You need all those people,” reinforcing how the integrated health care team works to take care of patients.
He added that he'll work with the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Health Agency to ensure needed changes to the MHS do not affect the readiness mission. He emphasized his new role, telling staff, “You have a resource at the Pentagon. You have a voice … I want you all to feel that you have access to me and my team if you're not getting what you need.”
Ferrara said that these were the first of many visits he plans to make to military hospitals and clinics in the MHS.
“We have amazing people, and we have smart leaders, great teams, people that improvise and people that adapt,” he emphasized. “At the end of the day, we have a no-fail mission.”
| Date Taken: | 03.03.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.03.2025 16:47 |
| Story ID: | 491927 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 106 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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