The military health system could leverage its unique resources “to help inform the national healthcare agenda,” Vice Adm. Raquel Bono, director of the Defense Health Agency (DHA), said Thursday. “We have data on everyone that comes into the system…. This is powerful, powerful data,” she told the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, noting there are 9.4 million beneficiaries. Bono mentioned the system also allows access to “longitudinal data,” including from a serum repository, which includes samples from every person in the system, and tissue samples dating back to the American Revolution. Bono said that, with this data, DHA “could become the IBM Watson for healthcare,” not only improving care for military members but for the public through the development of predictive analytics.
Unit commanders are being told to separate service members who can’t shave their cheeks and chin for medical reasons for more than a year, according to new guidance from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
