DHA Director Presents Testimony

Director, Defense Health Agency (DHA) Director, LTG Ronald Place in presenting testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee on May 25, 2022, discussed the Defense Health Program’s (DHP) contributions to health affairs.

He began the testimony with the current state of COVID-19 related efforts in the Department and some of the several critical elements related to responding plus ongoing operational demands.

First, COVID-19 testing is key to DOD’s public health strategy and the Department continues to sustain and expand COVID-19 testing as well as test for suspected cases in the beneficiary population. The Department currently maintains 140 operational laboratories for COVID-19 testing and has conducted nearly 6.4 million tests worldwide since the declaration on the pandemic.

Early in the COVID-19 response, DHA developed and released the DOD COVID-19 Practice Management Guide (PMG) to provide clinicians and Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) with a document on best practices, latest evidence, and guidance across all clinical care specialties. The PMG has been updated with the most recent version (Version 8) published January 31, 2022.

DHA continues to assist MTFs and healthcare providers on what to consider when administering emerging new therapies to treat COVID-19. So far, A number of new therapies have received emergency authorization from FDA to include therapies authorized for use in outpatient settings.

The Department is proceeding with the implementation of MHS GENESIS. The value of the EHR during the COVID-19 response enables MHS GENESIS to provide senior military and civilian leaders with timely information on COVID-19 lab testing results.

In addition, DOD has rolled-out capability improvements such as Cerner’s HealtheIntent Platform for secondary data use, MHS Video Connect, as well as multiple Cerner Millennium modules to improve the end user experience.

DOD’s future budget will continue to sustain the momentum in the COVID-19 fight, continue to defend the against further evolutions of the virus, and prepare for future  pandemics.

The future budget will be used to conduct rapid research and medical countermeasure development to help with diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, while strengthening the capability to quickly identify and characterize new variants and other emerging biological threats.

Go to https://docs.house.gov/meetings/APAP02/20220525/114802/HHRG-117-AP02-Wstate-PlaceR-20220525.pdf for LTG Ronald Place, Director of the Defense Health Agency, testimony  before the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee held May 25, 2022.