Unified Medical Command and Control in the Department of Defense

Abstract

Delivering health care to service members, retirees and their family members is essential to the morale and readiness of the Armed Forces. Indeed, it is viewed as a contract with service members to keep them healthy and treat them when they are sick or wounded. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for Defense Health Program (DHP) to deliver on this contract, however. At an estimated $57 billion last year, the contract is not cheap. Defense spending, in general, faces tremendous scrutiny and the Military Health System (MHS) constitutes a significant portion of defense spending. This makes military health care a target for budget cuts. The MHS must rethink how supports the force, in both the operational and institutional medicine arenas. All options must be on the table and the toughest options may require radical changes to do the most good. Any solution must deliver cost savings, which means that some protected aspects of the MHS will need to change.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 22, 2012
Accession Number
ADA561498

Entities

People

  • Anthony R. Nesbitt

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Combat Casualty Care
  • Combat Support Hospitals
  • Command And Control
  • Delivery Of Health Care
  • Employment
  • Geographic Regions
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Hospitals
  • Logistics
  • Medical Personnel
  • Military Medicine
  • Patient Care
  • Patient Care Management
  • Personnel Management
  • Therapy
  • War Colleges

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Medical or Health Care Field.
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control