Health care directly affects the preparation of the mission, said Darin Selnick, the official exercising the functions of the Defense Subsecretaire for staff and preparation.
Selnick spoke with health professionals yesterday at a town hall meeting at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
“What you do is very important,” he said, adding that he intended to make sure they have the resources necessary to succeed.
Selnick said he was aimed at obtaining military health care at the “best in the country”.
“But it takes time. It gets energy. It takes persistence, and it takes the dedication of all the staff,” he said.
“Are you an island of excellence in the Mediocracy Sea?” Selnick asked. “We have islands of excellence, but the objective is not to have islands of excellence. The goal is to have everything excellent.”
If fighters and their families are not in good health, their “heads will not be in the game” and recruitment and retention will suffer, he said.
“We certainly do not want to hide problems. I ask people to tell me the problems,” said Selnick, noting that there can be no solutions without knowing the problems that exist. This requires a climate of confidence, where people are not afraid to discuss concerns with their chain of command.
Selnick said better integration of medical records should occur between military and private health care systems.
The hiring of highly qualified doctors is very competitive, he said. The veterans department wants them, the army wants them and the private sector can pay the money very well to obtain them.
The only advantage of the army is its sacred mission to serve the Warfighter, but Selnick said that better incentives and recruitment processes were necessary. The partnership with the university world to help the recruitment pipeline is an idea. More ideas will be explored.