Wartime Medical Care

Operation Desert Storm revealed many weaknesses in the medical capabilities of U.S. armed forces. Later studies by GAO and the Defense Department (DOD) Inspector General found shortcomings in DOD's ability to deliver adequate and timely medical support during wartime. This report examines whether efforts by DOD and the military services to reassess and improve their medical capabilities have been properly focused and coordinated to produce the most effective wartime medical system. GAO reviews DOD's development, management, and implementation of its Medical Readiness Strategic Plan and the military service's medical reengineering efforts. GAO also examines DOD's ongoing project to identify future wartime medical system requirements.

GAO found that: (1) DOD and the services are making progress to correct the medical capability problems that have hampered recent military operations; (2) MRSP appropriately focuses on problems that GAO and DOD have identified; (3) DOD is placing increased emphasis on implementing MRSP, after a slow start; (4) many key MRSP tasks are unfunded or partially funded; (5) the services are reconfiguring their combat hospitals into smaller components and undertaking efforts to significantly enhance their current medical system capabilities; (6) the MHSS 2020 Project has not yet identified how military health capabilities should be funded and staffed in the future; and (7) until MHSS 2020 is completed, DOD cannot determine how compatible MRSP and service reengineering programs will be with future requirements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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