Surgeon General of the Navy Vice Admiral Matthew L. Nathan testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Defense on the Defense Health Program www.appropriations.senate.gov/subcommittee/defense. He talked about Navy Medicine’s efforts to effectively work with the Department of Defense (DOD) on the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa.
In 2014, two rapidly deployable detection mobile labs were sent to Liberia manned by Navy Medical Service Corps microbiologists and hospital corpsmen so they could use immunological and molecular analysis techniques to rapidly detect infectious pathogens.
The labs detection capabilities were able to reduce the amount of time to determine whether a patient has EVD from several days to a few hours which reduces the amount of contact that suspected non-infectious EVD cases have with confirmed infectious cases.
Vice Admiral Nathan discussed how the Navy’s Medical Home Port (MHP) program www.med.navy.mil/bumed/Pages/MedicalHomePort.aspx provides integrated and comprehensive primary care. MHP’s team-based approach offers same day access, preventive services, interactive secure messaging, and access to a 24/7 Nurse Advise Line.
Nearly all of Navy Medicine’s 750,000 Military Treatment Facility (MTF) www.tricare.mil.mtf enrollees are receiving care in a MHP that provides access to acute and routine appointments. As a result, emergency department utilization has decreased.
The Navy’s use of secure electronic messaging to communicate with providers has increased and today, over 290,000 patients are sending more than 30,000 messages a month.
As the Vice Admiral explained, “We have implemented six Marine-Centered Medical Homes (MCMH) and three Fleet-Centered Medical Homes (FCMH) demonstration sites plus we are planning to add an additional 19 sites by the end of 2015.”
The Behavioral Health Integration Program (BHIP) in the MHPs will be established over 80 BHIP sites throughout the Navy, Marine Corps, and the fleet. Right now, BHIP sites are established at two MCMH sites including one Fleet-Centered Medical Home and 38 Navy MHPs.
DOD is working closely with the VA for opportunities to share services to meet the needs of both service members and veterans. Progress is being made at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC) www.lovall.fhcc.va.gov, which is the first integrated DOD/VA facility.
The Stroger Hospital in Chicago www.cookcountyhhs.org has initiated a new training partnership embedding Navy Medicine personnel in Stroger’s busy trauma and burn units for one to two month rotations. The Cook County Trauma Experience (CCTE) allows Navy physicians, nurses, and corpsmen to work alongside Cook County trauma surgeons to gain valuable experience.
Another important focus area for the Navy is to use information technology to support the provider’s ability to deliver healthcare to both VA and DOD beneficiaries in the FHCC integrated environment.
Today, the Army, Air Force, and Defense Health Agency www.tricare.mil/tma are working with DOD to support the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) effort to acquire and configure a new EHR.
The EHR will be used in the MTFs, onboard naval vessels, and in the field with Marine forces to support interoperability with the VA and private sector providers. Two Navy MTFs Naval Hospitals are expected to be part of the initial operations.