“‘I’ve been looking forward to this engagement since you first invited me … in 2019,’ said Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, director of the Defense Health Agency, as he began his View from the Top session at HIMSS21 here on Wednesday.”
“Yes, the world looks quite a bit different since March of 2020, when the novel coronavirus first upended the world and forced the cancellation of that year’s edition of this conference…”
“Across the U.S. and the world, hospitals and health systems, public health authorities, government leaders and others have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic the only way they can, he said: ‘trying to make sense of the information that we had, and then using that to make decisions.'”
“The same process occurred across the Department of Defense, as the enormous national security implications of COVID-19 became apparent in early 2020, said Place…”
“The DoD quickly stood up a task force to develop a testing strategy across the entire Armed Forces, he said.”
“‘How much testing could we do, what was our capacity, how accurate were we, how soon can we get results from our laboratories in the Military Health System? The pandemic reminded us of the connectivity between disease and readiness.'”
“There’s a reason the U.S. military will soon be requiring COVID-19 vaccines, after all.”
“‘It takes away from the mission,’ he said. ‘It takes aircraft carriers away from the mission. It has the potential to ground airplanes, keep submarines in port. Takes healthcare workers out of their usual work and makes them do other things, perhaps in other areas of the country. It slows down our process for training new recruits.'”
“The Military Health System is the largest organization of its kind in the world, said Place, with 600 hospitals and clinics serving 9.6 million Americans, staffed by 150,000 people and a budget of $54 billion.”
“One of its major initiatives over the past several years, of course, has been its massive electronic health record modernization project with Cerner…” Read the full article here.
Source: DHA director: Information and technology drive effective pandemic response – By Mike Miliard, August 12, 2021. Healthcare IT News.
