Pentagon officials and service health care professionals gathered this week for the annual state of military health care conference. The mantra was consolidation and transformation to eliminate redundancy and improve response to changing patient demographics—in a word, jointness. Officials cited the changes to be wrought under BRAC 2005, such as the replacement of historic Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. with a national medical center at Bethesda, Md., and consolidation of military medical training at Ft. Sam Houston, Tex. Officials also had high praise for military medicine on the battlefield and in medical evacuation.
All of the U.S. military services are pursuing capabilities to complement GPS amid concerns that the constellation is increasingly vulnerable to interference, but a new government watchdog report calls for better coordination and prioritization among those efforts to avoid delays and duplication.
