Replacing Col. Judith Lee as commander of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center required a person ready and capable to take on the complex challenges of leading the largest U.S. hospital outside the United States.
As the former Chief of Staff for Europe Regional Medical Command, Col. James Laterza knew the hospital mission and was the right man for the job, said Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Norvell Coots while presiding over the LRMC change of command ceremony held under ominous skies May 29, 2015.
"You have won the lottery in having Jim as a commander," said Coots, Commander for Europe Regional Medical Command and the Command Surgeon for U.S. Army Europe.
During her two-year tenure, Lee continued to lead the LRMC transition from a wartime mission where more than 94,000 Wounded Warriors have been treated at LRMC from Afghanistan and Iraq. But in addition, Lee immediately encountered additional challenges such as civilian and military staff reductions, the government furlough, enforcement of the five-year-rule, major inspections for safety, hospital accreditation, and trauma level verification, and preparing to respond to the Ebola epidemic.
"Judy took the controls and began to shape and mold the organization and move it miles down the road toward becoming a High Reliability Organization," said Coots.
Laterza, he said, will continue to successfully lead LRMC down that same pathway through innovative programs such as Telehealth which allows specialty care providers at LRMC to cross commands, countries, and continents to provide high-quality, patient-centered care to beneficiaries residing in or deployed to Europe. Laterza said he looks forward to journey.
"Many, including me, consider Landstuhl the most important hospital in the Army Medical Department, said Laterza. "It serves as the beacon for health for all services as their wounded, ill and injured men and women return through the MEDEVAC system. The caring and competent Landstuhl team has never failed them.
"I have done my best to improve every organization I have served in, but know it is the team that gets things done. Leading this team will be the greatest honor and privilege of my career. I commit to do my best and always put the patient first in everything we do. A famed list of leaders since 1953 worked tirelessly to advance healthcare here and created the foundation for medicine at LRMC. Our healthcare team will continue to earn the right to be associated with that history."
Lee moves on to become Chief of Patient Care Integration at Defense Health Headquarters in Virginia. Defense Health Headquarters is home to about 3,000 healthcare professionals from the DoD's Office of Health Affairs, TriCare Management Activity, the Army and Air Force's Surgeon General's, and the Navy Bureau of Medicine.
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