FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii (Sept. 28, 2018) -- Key opportunities for greater cooperation, communication, and interoperability were discussed at the third annual Hawaii Military Health System (MHS) strategic offsite Sept. 26 to 28, hosted by the Hawaii enhanced Multi-Service Market (eMSM) office.

Guy Kiyokawa, deputy director of the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and Army Maj. Gen. Ronald Place, director of National Capitol Regional Medical Directorate, DHA, were the keynote speakers. They provided a comprehensive presentation of the medical provisions outlined in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes realigning the MHS Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) under the DHA.

Army Brig. Gen. Michael Place, market manager of Hawaii eMSM and Navy Capt. Paul Toland, chief operating officer of Hawaii eMSM, welcomed over 150 military and civilian leaders, which included senior leaders from the Veteran's Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System, Health Net Federal Services, TRICARE Health Plan Division -- West, and the command teams of each Hawaii MTF.
Angela Anderson, deputy chief operating officer of Hawaii eMSM, emphasized the importance of achieving high standards in her opening comments.

"In order to change a culture, we have to challenge the status quo. We must challenge every process that no longer works, or doesn't make sense. We are the operational experts," said Anderson. "We are charged with an awesome yet achievable responsibility; to design an integrated system of health. A system of high quality, efficient and effective care. A system our patients trust and we can be proud to work for."

During the offsite, 10 working groups presented their significant accomplishments, points of concern and their way ahead. Significant accomplishments presented included how standardizing credentialing processes increases providers' interoperability between the services, successful outcomes resulting from sharing physical therapy assets between services, advantages of applying a joint-service approach to referral management, and significant decreases in post-traumatic stress disorder network inpatient bed days by optimizing a behavioral health intensive outpatient program.

Attendees were later divided into three joint-service multi-functional working groups to separately assess the current significance, status and way ahead on the topics of replacing the current Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Navy and Air Force MTFs with a consolidated facility servicing all eligible uniformed service members, retirees, and family members; the need to establish a market-level patient experience/advisory council, and the critical required actions to ensure a smooth transformation to a consolidated logistics operational system.

Toland closed with saying, "We have established a strong foundation for implementing joint-service market wide solutions, our journey forward will build upon this foundation as we realign the Hawaii MHS into a single integrated health system."