Sure, they'll come up with plans. After all, they have to follow orders. But everyone working in health care facilities understands that the work processes in place in hospitals and clinics have developed over many years. Bolting on changes will not change underlying systemic problems, and may even make them worse.
The plans that will be put forward will likely make short-term incremental improvements, but then things will fall back to old (or new) levels of dysfunction after a few months.
Mr. Hagel is absolutely correct that “Our men and women in uniform and their families deserve the finest health care in the world.” But long-term process improvement does not come from rushing to put a plan together, especially when it comes from the top down. The Secretary might take a hint from the nuclear Navy, where principles of front-line engagement in support of process improvement have been in place for decades.
We’ve since learned that the culture of the VA and the Secret Service strongly discourages people from speaking up to criticize the status quo or to call out mistakes or wrongdoing by more senior people in the organization. I suspect that the same culture exists within Tricare. It’s hard to improve processes when people with good ideas are reluctant to bring them to management’s attention because they fear they will suffer negative consequences if they do. The first order of business in each of these organizations should be to fix that which, of course, is easier said than done in an entrenched bureaucracy.
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