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Military Medicine Teams With VA To Open Joint Out-Patient Facility

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080919-06
Release Date: 9/19/2008 7:23:00 AM

By Rod Duren, Naval Hospital Pensacola Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- Representatives from the Department of Defense and Navy medicine joined Sept. 15 with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs(VA) to officially open Northwest Florida's version of an ongoing national venture of joint healthcare between the cabinet-level organizations.

VA Secretary James Peake, a former U.S. Army surgeon general who commanded 50,000 medical personnel at 187 USA facilities worldwide, joined Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Stephen Jones and Deputy Surgeon General of the Navy Rear Adm. Thomas Cullison in the ceremonial opening of Pensacola's Joint Ambulatory Care Center (JACC).

The out-patient facility is the latest Defense Department-VA venture to combine medical facilities and specialty healthcare between the historically-separated government agencies.

Cullison, speaking earlier in the morning to Naval Hospital Pensacola's Executive Steering Council, said the Northwest Florida joint venture was among the "models … of this parallel system" that's underway nationwide between Defense and VA healthcare.

At the ceremony, the Deputy Surgeon General indicated the new facility "will allow us to work more closely than ever" and to provide better healthcare, specialties and services to more active duty and veterans within the region.

NH Pensacola and the VA-Gulf Coast have had sharing agreements that date to 1996 which have included concerns from in-patient care to laundry. In 2001, the Navy Medicine facility responded to VA requests for increased services that included VA-approved in-patient admissions – which began with a modest total of 68. The concept for the Pensacola-based joint clinic got its jump-start in 2002 when NH Pensacola and the Biloxi, Miss., VA Healthcare System signed a concept letter for the facility and forwarded it up both chains of command for consideration.

As part of the continuing concept of operation between the two government entities, there are renovations currently underway within the Navy hospital for a VA-specified inpatient ward.

Peake pointed out the long history of "interagency cooperation" between the VA and DoD to get the proposed facility off the ground -- and to Congress for providing the appropriations.

Concept-time is over, he said. It's time now for "local leadership to roll up its sleeves" and begin operating this "continuum of care" for all active duty and veterans in the region.

Peake pointed to the "outstanding leadership development" that has come from this venture that includes VA-Gulf Coast Healthcare System's Charles Sepich; NH Pensacola's Commanding Officer Capt. Maryalice Morro; and the current Officer in Charge of the Corry clinic Cmdr. Glenn Gargano.

The JACC is located between NH Pensacola and Corry Station in southwestern Escambia County, Fla. The JACC had its "soft opening" Aug. 25 and is the new home for both Pensacola's VA Clinic and Naval Hospital Pensacola's Corry Station branch health clinic.

For more news from Naval Hospital Pensacola, Fla., visit www.navy.mil/local/nh_pensacola/.