With staff located around the globe, the Defense Health Agency’s liaison officers had the rare opportunity to gather at the 2024 DHA Liaison Officer Annual Meeting in February 2024, in Falls Church, Virginia.
The meeting brought together combatant command LNOs, combatant command surgeon generals, and DHA’s senior leaders to collaborate, discuss challenges and opportunities in their role, and learn how they contribute to DHA’s mission.
“We give them the opportunity to spend time with senior leaders in the agency to learn about how they think and get updates about what's going on within their specific divisions,” said Sara Huntsman, DHA liaison office program manager. “Team building is another big part of this meeting.”
Senior Leader Perspectives Help with LNOs Responsibilities to Combatant Commands
An important opportunity for LNOs was meeting with senior leaders and department heads from across the DHA during the week-long event—which provided key information about DHA’s role as a combat support agency and new initiatives that will help shape how they do their jobs.
U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Norman West, DHA chief of staff, opened the meeting talking about the role of the chief of staff office and how it can help the LNOs in their daily tasks.
The LNOs also heard from DHA Director U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland on the first day of the meeting. She talked about the establishment of the DHA and its role as a combat support agency, then opened the session for questions.
“Being a combat support agency is what makes us different from every other health care system in the world,” said Crosland. “Everything that the DHA has in its portfolio will support operational force.”
She noted that even if the DHA wasn’t designated as a combat support agency, it would still support operational force as a health care agency.
“I’m looking for the gaps … such as the blood program and the joint trauma system. It’s the things that are not resourced by the Army, Navy, or Air Force,” she said. “I list them as CSA functions, because they are in that gap. Acknowledging that in a true conflict, it is an entire agency in support of the DOD--as our mission statement says: We support the nation.”
Crosland also discussed how the DHA is beginning to change the way that health care is delivered, and that effective change will be hard.
She talked about selecting five military hospital and clinical locations to explore how they can better serve warfighters and their families.
“Those teams are now being equipped and have industry partners and coaches wrapping their arms around them, helping them move to that part of the journey,” said Crosland. “Then we'll scale it across the enterprise. We will change culture, which is the hardest part in changing mindsets.”
Throughout the week, the LNOs had the opportunity to hear from additional DHA leaders and learn more about operations and how it can better support them in their roles.
The DHA currently has nine LNOs positioned across the combatant commands and joint staff. These include U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Transportation Command, and the Office of the Joint Staff Surgeon.
“These meetings help us to understand the strategic perspective of the DHA and how we can relate that to the senior leaders at the combatant commands,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col Brooks Crane, a DHA LNO with the Office of the Joint Staff Surgeon. “It gave us an opportunity to meet with DHA senior leaders and understand their worldview and how they view a specific problem set. This makes it easier for us to liaise and communicate that across lines to combatant commands.”