Background of MEDCOM

As long as the U. S. Army continues to fight the global war against terrorism, there is a need to provide medical care and services to soldiers deploying and returning from the various areas of conflict, like Iraq and Afghanistan. Your expertise, medical skills and vast experience may benefit our country and contribute toward providing the best medical services available to the military force.

All Army health care people in the world belong to the Army Medical Department (AMEDD). The Army Surgeon General, a three star general, sets policy for AMEDD and dual hats as the U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) Commander. MEDCOM includes the Army's fixed hospitals and dental facilities; preventive health, medical research, development and training institutions; and a veterinary command that provides food inspection and animal care services for the entire Department of Defense. When our field hospitals deploy, most clinical professional and support personnel come from MEDCOM facilities. Typically, our deployments are not in support of traditional combat scenarios; rather, we deploy for humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, and other stability and support operations. Under our Professional Officer Filler System, or PROFIS, we send up to 26 percent of our physicians and 43 percent of our nurses to field units during a full deployment. To replace PROFIS losses, Reserve units and Individual Mobilization Augmentees (non-unit reservists) are mobilized to work in our medical treatment facilities. The department also provides trained medical specialists to the Army's combat medical units, which are assigned directly to combatant commanders. Many Army Reserve and Army National Guard units deploy in support of the Army Medical Department. The Army depends heavily on its Reserve component for medical support—about 63 percent of the Army's medical forces are in the Reserve component.

All the while, we maintain day-to-day health care for soldiers, retired soldiers and the families of both. Despite the wide range of responsibilities involved in providing health care in traditional settings as well as on the battlefield, MEDCOM’s quality of care for America's Army compares very favorably with that of civilian health organizations, when measured by civilian standards. Many Army medical facilities report on their own quality-of-care standards on their individual World Wide Web sites. You can link to these sites and more at www.armymedicine.army.mil.

JCAHO Evaluations
All Army medical treatment facilities are accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The JCAHO evaluates performance of functions and processes aimed at improving patient care in both civilian and military hospitals. Army medical treatment facilities rate well in this review process. In 2002, Army hospitals' average JCAHO score of 94.2 exceeded the national average of 92. Army ambulatory care scores averaged 97.8 compared to the national average of 92.7.

Clinical Practice Guidelines
The Army Medical Department leads the DOD in CPG-based performance improvement through our partnership with the Veterans Healthcare Administration. Our system-wide implementation of guidelines targets high-cost, high volume conditions. We believe that a systematic, evidence-based approach to disease and condition management leads to better care and efficiency. Guidelines have been developed to address 12 of the 15 priority areas identified in the Institute of Medicine report, "Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality" published Jan. 7, 2003.

Patient Safety Program
The Army Medical Department participates in the federally directed, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary Patient Safety Working Group. The mission of the program is to establish an environment of trust, cooperation and communication to facilitate an interdisciplinary proactive approach to improving patient safety and reducing preventable medical errors. The AMEDD has implemented a patient safety regulation to ensure uniformity in all its facilities.

Physician Licensing/Board Certification
Those engaged in independent practice of medicine are required to hold current, valid, unrestricted licenses. Each Army facility monitors its providers' performance and uses the performance record as evidence of continued competency for renewal of privileges. Approximately 93 percent of physicians eligible for board certification are certified.

NPDB Reporting
The Army Medical Department reports to the National Practitioners Data Bank those providers implicated in paid medical malpractice cases as well as instances where privileges have been adversely affected. Since inception, the Army has reported 303 providers, 36 during fiscal 2000.

Please consult our Frequently Asked Questions to learn more specific information about our program.