Current events are changing and shaping the military health landscape. From the global pandemic to increasingly contested environments, military branches are considering a wide range of emerging factors as they look to advance military health.
GovCon Wire sat down with Corey Hastings, chief financial officer at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, or HJF, to talk about what’s on the horizon for global military health. Read below for his full Executive Spotlight interview.
GovCon Wire: What’s your outlook on the global military health landscape? What significant changes or trends are you seeing?
Hastings: The global military health landscape is driven by the pressing national interest in readiness for a near peer conflict in which medical treatments of the wounded could look very different than it did in recent conflicts. In the conflicts of the last few decades, the establishment of air superiority allowed the U.S. to easily communicate and quickly evacuate wounded personnel, but that may not be the case in future conflicts. We’re seeing in real time what the near peer battlefield conditions may be like, especially in Ukraine, but also in other places around the world. This is changing the perspective on how military medicine needs to adapt to stay effective in the future.
At HJF, significant research is focused on military healthcare in austere environments, such as the battlefield, as well as medicines, technologies, practices and treatments that can be effective in the field for sustained periods of time. Also, I think there is a continued interest in pandemic preparedness, for obvious reasons, and infectious disease surveillance that’s also associated with that. Additionally, the DOD is increasingly focusing on mental health — traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and general efforts related to the mental health and readiness of the force. We have many research projects in these areas ranging from basic science to clinical studies.
GCW: Which emerging technologies do you anticipate will have the greatest impact on military medicine in the next few years?
Hastings: Artificial intelligence is important, particularly with regard to large scale data collection and analysis. AI can also be leveraged in the area of human performance to improve how soldiers and warfighters perform in varying environments and conditions. Wound care and treatment technologies are advancing rapidly. And certainly, the ability to perform medical treatment remotely and, in general, technological advances that facilitate the decentralization of guidance and training so that staff closer to the point of injury are able to deliver the necessary care quickly is extremely critical in any situation where evacuation is difficult.
GCW: Where are you seeing opportunities for accelerated, meaningful public-private partnerships that have the potential to impact military medicine?
Hastings: One of the most important areas for military medicine is in collaborations between the military and civilian trauma centers. In research, that is particularly important because the civilian trauma centers see a more regular flow of patients and have highly developed research capabilities. Some of the most interesting partnerships in military medicine are collaborations between the military and civilian trauma centers.
Another area that’s very important is economies of scale in product manufacturing. Because the military itself isn’t a particularly large market, dual use solutions, which benefit both the civilian and military populations, will have a higher potential for commercialization. At HJF, we have an innovation ecosystem that works to help bridge that development gap to move new technologies for military health applications through to larger scale production and commercialization.
GCW: Tell me about HJF’s culture. What aspects of the company do you think are contributing most to its success while helping to attract and retain top-level talent?
Hastings: HJF was congressionally established to partner with the federal government to advance military medicine. Most fundamentally is a basic culture of service that makes us the partner of choice for military medicine. I think our employees really understand that and relate to the mission. We are a nonprofit organization, and military medicine is what we do. So, this isn’t a side business for us as part of a for-profit portfolio. This is a central aspect of our culture. Secondly, we are a scientific and research organization; we are not a staffing organization. When we take on federal contracts and grants, we don’t simply hire people from a network and place them in positions.
We employ a large variety of scientists over long periods of time on long-running partnerships with our federal partners. We are fundamentally a scientific organization first and foremost. And then lastly, HJF focuses on the long-term future of our employee base, whether with us or with other organizations, because primarily, we’re a nonprofit and we’re committed to our mission. We want to help our staff to advance military medicine no matter where their career takes them.
