In its review, DoD is looking at how the MTFs support inpatient and/or outpatient services to maintain medical force readiness. “We need to identify those areas where we can expand capacity at MTFs that offer potential for sustaining the skills and knowledge of our members,” said McCaffrey. “But we also must examine those areas where facilities do not offer now and likely will not be able to offer in the future a platform for maximizing capabilities to support medical readiness. In those situations, we must be open to right sizing MTF services and capabilities so as to ensure that we are using finite resources most efficiently while not compromising our ability to meet the mission.”
“Our military healthy system is the envy of the world. Any great power competitor would trade its health care and battlefield medicine capabilities for the system you have built,” McCaffrey said. “But just as America’s combat supremacy is not guaranteed nor is the supremacy of the MHS.” The US faces new global security challenges, McCaffrey argued, and “we must adapt and evolve if we are to successfully meet these challenges.”