Defense health care: actions needed to define and sustain wartime medical skills for enlisted personnel : report to Congressional committees
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- United States. Government Accountability Office. issuing body. United States. Congress. issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : United States Government Accountability Office, June 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Armed Conflicts -- legislation & jurisprudence Education, Continuing -- legislation & jurisprudence Government Regulation Military Medicine -- organization & administration United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Why GAO did this study. DOD has over 73,000 active-duty enlisted medical personnel who must be ready to provide life-saving care to injured and ill servicemembers during deployed operations, using their wartime medical skills. Senate Report 116-48 accompanying a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 included a provision for GAO to review DOD’s efforts to maintain enlisted personnel’s wartime medical skills. This report examines, among other objectives, the extent to which (1) the military departments have defined, tracked, and assessed enlisted personnel’s wartime medical skills, and (2) DOD has developed plans and processes to sustain these skills and assessed risks associated with their implementation. GAO analyzed wartime medical skills checklists and guidance; reviewed plans for skills sustainment; and interviewed officials from DOD and military department medical commands and agencies, and nine inpatient military medical treatment facilities. What GAO recommends. GAO is making 30 recommendations, including that military departments fully define and implement wartime medical skills for enlisted medical personnel subspecialties, track skills training, and establish performance goals and targets for training completion, as appropriate; and that DOD develop metrics to assess how military medical treatment facility workload and civilian partnerships sustain these skills and assess risks to skills sustainment. DOD concurred and described some related actions, as discussed in the report.
- Copyright:
- The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (iii, 97 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918317484906676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918317484906676