Evaluation of DoD Efforts to Assign Medical Personnel to Locations Where They Can Maintain Wartime Readiness Skills and Core Competencies

Rec. 1.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Secretary of the Army update and implement policy or guidance requiring personnel commands to use information about wartime readiness requirements for medical personnel when making assignment decisions and clearly identify how military-civilian partnership assignment locations should be prioritized relative to other assignment locations.

Rec. 1.c: The DoD OIG recommended that the Secretary of the Air Force update and implement policy or guidance requiring personnel commands to use information about wartime readiness requirements for medical personnel when making assignment decisions and clearly identify how military-civilian partnership assignment locations should be prioritized relative to other assignment locations.

Rec. 2.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Defense Health Agency Director, in coordination with the Military Departments, develop and implement a plan to generate a complete registry of military-civilian partnerships.

Rec. 3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) require the Surgeons General of the Military Departments, in coordination with the Defense Health Agency, to submit an annual evaluation to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) on the Departments' clinical readiness assessments. The evaluation must, at minimum:
Provide the Department's progress toward implementing its assessment process for wartime clinical readiness.
Provide the data quality and collection issues preventing the Department from accurately measuring adherence to wartime clinical readiness standards.
Provide the percent of medical personnel, by specialty and assignment location, meeting the Department's established clinical readiness threshold.
Provide the percent of medical personnel meeting the Department's established clinical readiness thresholds through assignment or placement in military-civilian partnerships.
Provide the assigned locations where the Department's medical personnel are at greatest risk of clinical skill degradation.