Brig. Gen. Phil Volpe, deputy commander of Joint Task Force-Capital Medicine (JTF CapMed), addressed a group of Walter Reed staff members at a Dec. 16 Base Realignment and Closure town hall in Heaton Pavilionís Joel Auditorium. The presentation was one in a series of town halls hosted across the region to update the various medical staffs on construction, integration, civilian personnel issues and transformation.
Established by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon Englandís memorandum of Sept. 12, 2007, JTF CapMed is the militaryís first medical Standing Joint Task Force. The missions assigned to the JTF for the National Capital Region are to ensure the effective delivery of world-class health care and oversight of the BRAC consolidation and realignment of military health care in the National Capital Region.
ìThis is a huge undertaking,î Volpe said. ìBut itís also very exciting and we want to do this right.î
Volpe discussed the definition of what ìworld-classî means during the town hall. He summarized that ìworld-class is about building, sustaining and nurturing a reputation. It means nothing if you refer to yourself as ëworld-class.í Itís only when others refer to you as ëworld-class,í that you have really achieved something.î
Volpe said there are still key decisions that have to be made regarding BRAC, including: manning and governance of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital; civilian personnel management; force distribution; National Capital Region financial management; and JTF-CapMed organizational alignment post-BRAC. However, he said gains will be made from these ìtransformational initiativesî including: a joint regional approach to health-care delivery; clear lines of authority and priority; unity of effort and resource sharing; interoperability; common standards and processes; support of joint and service-unique requirements; elimination of layers of command and duplication; synchronization within the National Capital Region and Joint Operating Area; routine and disaster support coordination; advocate for resources and solutions to challenges; and influence the Military Health System for enterprise-wide transformation.
Volpe said Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., will become an outpatient-only facility by 2011 as mandated by BRAC law.
He added that all civilians working at WRNMMC and FBCH will be Department of Defense civilians rather than service-unique.
In discussing traffic concerns at Bethesda and Fort Belvoir, Volpe said the National Naval Military Center at Bethesda has not only published a master plan, but they have also developed a transportation plan to address these specific issues. This plan can be viewed at the Web site http://www.bethesda.med.navy.mil/Professional/Public_Affairs/BRAC/index.aspx.
ìAs for Fort Belvoir, state and county officials are fully aware that Route 1, which is already congested and which runs right through the base, will need to be redone both on the base and off,î Volpe said. ìAs with Montgomery Countyís efforts to secure funding for widening projects along Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Virginia government officials are looking at a variety of options and pursuing funding for Route 1 improvements.î
Volpe said ìBRAC is a good thing,î although ìmany people donít see it that way. If it wasnít for BRAC, integrating military health care wouldnít get done. Once weíre done, we will gain an effectiveness and efficiency that will truly make us a world-class regional military health-care system.î
Additional information on BRAC and transformation can be found at www.jtfcapmed.mil.
(Submitted by JTF CAPMED Public Affairs).
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