Skip to main content

Military Health System

Test of Sitewide Banner

This is a test of the sitewide banner capability. In the case of an emergency, site visitors would be able to visit the news page for addition information.

DHA Director: Technology Helps to “Meet the Patients Where They Are”

Image of DHA Director Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland speaking at a podium. Defense Health Agency Director Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland took the podium at the 2023 AMSUS Annual Meeting, sharing her vision for DHA’s future. The meeting, held from Feb. 13-16 in National Harbor, Maryland, brought together top minds in military, public, veteran, and global health. (Photo by: Robert Hammer)

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, director of the Defense Health Agency, shared her vision for DHA’s future, her priorities, and the growing role of technology during remarks presented at the annual meeting of AMSUS, the society for federal health professionals, held in National Harbor, Maryland. The theme of the AMSUS meeting was “Healthcare Collaboration: Meeting the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow.”

“The first priority of the MHS is to keep the force healthy and ready to get out the door,” said Crosland. “The second priority is to keep the medical force trained and ready to get out the door with them. The third priority is for the agency to run platforms to receive casualties, and the fourth priority is the benefit.”

Crosland joined the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the surgeons general of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force, the Joint Staff Surgeon, and the president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in a plenary discussion highlighting the mission of the Military Health System and the future of military medicine. 

Crosland explained that the MHS does not exist apart from the broader U.S. health care system.

“We’re part of it,” she said. “Our future is dependent on understanding that system. Partnering where it makes sense. Building and sustaining our own capacity where we must.” 

Crosland joined her colleagues in emphasizing the unique nature of military medicine, both the challenges and opportunities.

“Whether that’s at sea, in small unit operations, in disaster assistance or humanitarian operations, we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see what others do,” said Crosland. “We need to be leaders in exploring how to care for our people using technology that is available today, and that can be scaled tomorrow.”

Crosland, who became DHA’s fourth director in its 10-year history on Jan. 3, 2023, also addressed the ongoing digital transformation at the DHA. 

 

DHA Director Lt. Gen. Crossland answering questions
Defense Health Agency Director Lt. Gen. Crosland offered insight into a range of health care topics at a question-and-answer session at the 2023 AMSUS Annual Meeting. (Photo by: Robert Hammer)

“We need to think more broadly and more boldly about what is possible,” she said. “Not in a 10-year, over-the-horizon way. But today—what can we achieve in 2023 ... no other health enterprise in the world has as much at stake as the MHS in a digital transformation to prepare for our future challenges.”

The rollout of the MHS GENESIS electronic health record system exemplifies the digital revolution already underway at DHA. Crosland noted that while MHS GENESIS deployment is expected to be complete by the end of 2023, it represents a beginning—not an end of DHA’s digital evolution—laying the groundwork for what comes next.

She spoke about a “disciplined approach to innovation that is scalable and that we can do quickly. That will be my focus of the first year: technology that is right for leveraging across the entire system.”

New approaches to health care delivery are underway as well, especially virtual health care delivery tools that allow patients to receive care remotely.

“The pandemic has shown, and patients have embraced, that if you can’t bring the patient to the hospital, we need to bring the hospital to the patient,” said Crosland, a family medicine physician and graduate of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

She shared how technology could continue to enhance the future of health care and offered a look ahead for the federal medical professionals attending the conference. 

“Our vision of the future is one where physicians, nurses and medics and corpsmen are liberated by technology rather than burdened by it; a vision where the burden of monitoring and entering data for providers and patients is offloaded on devices and services that are connected, interoperable, and—through the use of AI—smart,” Crosland continued. “We are going to meet the patients where they are. Anytime. Anywhere. Always.”

In reference to her new role as director, Crosland discussed how she wants the DHA to evolve under her leadership. 

“We’ve got to, as an organization, adopt a culture that embraces innovation in a disciplined way,” said Crosland. “My first step is to see all the great things out there that are going on, to move us as an organization [and] to move us from brick and mortar to a digitalized organization … I am so grateful for this opportunity to lead the agency in addressing the urgent needs of today.”

 

You also may be interested in...

After Leading Through the Pandemic, TRICARE Pharmacy Chief Retires

Article
5/27/2022
Curbside Pharma

How COVID-driven changes are improving the TRICARE Pharmacy System.

How MHS Video Connect Improves Mission Effectiveness and Care Quality

Article
5/18/2022
Army Lt. Col (Dr.) Robert Cornfeld explains how MHS Video Connect's convenient, secure, and easy-to-use virtual video visit capability helps providers keep patients on mission and improves engagement with them, directly leading to better health outcomes.

Open to all active duty service members, retirees, and their families enrolled in a military hospital or clinic, MHS Video Connect empowers patients to meet with their military health provider virtually through live video on any internet-connected computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Patients at Naval Branch Health Clinic Albany can take steps now to prepare for MHS GENESIS ‘Go Live’

Article Around MHS
5/17/2022
MHS GENESIS log on

Naval Branch Health Clinic (NBHC) Albany will transition to the Military Health System’s new electronic health record, MHS GENESIS, on June 11

Winn ACH prepares to transition to MHS GENESIS

Article Around MHS
5/4/2022
Military Health Personnel in Army hospital

U.S. Army Medical Department Activity Fort Stewart – Hunter Army Airfield healthcare continues to prepare to transition healthcare records to the new Department of Defense system - Military Health System GENESIS.

New MHS GENESIS Capabilities Deployed at BAMC and LACKLAND

Article
5/3/2022
Trauma personnel receive an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO patient into the Emergency Department at Brooke Army Medical Center, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, Jan. 24, 2022. MHS GENESIS new functionalities support BAMC’s Level I Trauma Center. (Photo: Corey Toye, Brooke Army Medical Center)

Wave BAMC and Wave LACKLAND simultaneously deployed the new single common federal electronic health record (EHR), which the DOD calls MHS GENESIS. With these Waves, the DOD activated over 11,000 new MHS GENESIS users.

C-Suite's Culture of Care

Article
4/27/2022
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Clinton Murray (right), Brooke Army Medical Center commanding general and an infectious disease physician, and Dr. Evan Renz, deputy to the commander for quality and safety and a general surgeon, stop to compare notes during Saturday morning rounds at BAMC on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Dec. 18, 2021. (Courtesy Photo)

It can be a balancing act, but senior leaders at Brooke Army Medical Center make it a priority to carve out time for clinical care.

MHS GENESIS: Commanders Say Electronic Health Records Foster Improved Care

Article
4/20/2022
An Army soldier and patient actor sports a mock impalement while providing simulated medical information to test out a new electronic medical record system designed to virtually document medical encounters in the field. The mock scenario was part of the U.S. Navy’s Rim of the Pacific exercise in 2018. (Photo: Ana Allen, U.S. Army)

MHS GENESIS improves health care for military beneficiaries across the enterprise.

MHS GENESIS Now Deployed at 66 of 138 Military Hospital and Clinic Commands

Article
4/8/2022
Air Force Col. Dolphis Hall, 4th Medical Group commander, left, and Chief Master Sgt. Kaleah Belin, 4th MDG senior enlisted leader, pose for a photo at the Thomas Koritz Medical Clinic at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, March 19, 2022. (Photo: Air Force Senior Airman Kimberly Barrera)

MHS GENESIS is now live at Waves Bragg and Wave Hood.

MHS GENESIS live at BJACH, JRTC, Fort Polk

Article Around MHS
4/6/2022
Military personnel looking at a computer

At 7 a.m., on March 19, as the day shift assumed their duties MHS GENESIS became the new modernized electronic health record for beneficiaries of Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital.

How Health IT Upgrades are Transforming the Military Health System

Article
4/5/2022
Dr. Barclay Butler, the Defense Health Agency’s assistant director of management, spoke at the annual Health Information Management Systems Society conference in Orlando, Florida, in March. (Photo: Claire Reznicek, MHS Communications)

Implementing an Electronic Health Record system is key to modernizing the Military Health System’s patient care.

New App Addresses Service Women's Health Care Needs

Article
4/1/2022
Deployment Readiness Education for Servicewomen, one-stop resource for some of the most common questions and concerns that servicewomen have around deployment. (Photo: Connected Health)

The Defense Health Agency announces the release of Deployment Readiness Education for Servicewomen, the agency’s newest progressive web application.

MHS Minute: March 2022

Video
3/31/2022
MHS Minute: March 2022

MHS Minute | March 2022

BJACH conducts MHS GENESIS exercise ahead of transition

Article Around MHS
3/23/2022
Military personnel during a MHS GENESIS exercise

The Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital conducted MHS GENESIS mock “go-live” exercises 9, 10 and 11 March at the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Top Military Health Care Leader Looks to the Future of Medicine

Article
3/23/2022
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Kathryn Lipscomb, the urology department head at U.S. Naval Hospital Rota in Spain, waves to staff in USNH Naples, Italy during the first virtual cystoscopy between both hospitals in Jan 2021. (Photo: Navy Cmdr. Ryan Nations)

Health care has come a long way in recent years, thanks to technology, innovation and unexpected challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic. The explosion of capabilities includes robots in the operating room, the expansion of virtual health care and virtual encounters, remote patient monitoring and artificial intelligence.

Accelerating Digital Health Across the MHS

Video
3/22/2022
Accelerating Digital Health Across the MHS

Across the Military Health System, we are partnering together to leverage digital health wherever we can – to keep our patients at the center of everything we do.

Page 5 of 19 , showing items 61 - 75
First < 1 2 3 4 5  ... > Last 
Refine your search
Last Updated: March 21, 2023
Follow us on Instagram Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on YouTube Sign up on GovDelivery