Quality and Patient Safety Review Processes in Military Treatment Facilities and Operational Clinical Services : RAND Corporation , June 23 , 2026
Quality and Patient Safety Review Processes in Military Treatment Facilities and Operational Clinical Services : RAND Corporation , June 23 , 2026
From the report: “The U.S. military relies on the medical readiness of individual service members for its overall readiness and lethality. The Military Health System (MHS) provides health care to service members, family members, and other beneficiaries at military treatment facilities (MTFs) and through TRICARE-contracted private-sector facilities and providers. The MHS also provides health care to service members within operational settings. Care delivered in these operational settings, referred to as operational clinical services (OCSs), and at MTFs is considered direct care. Whereas MTFs are fixed or permanent medical facilities, established for the purpose of delivering medical and dental care to eligible individuals (Department of Defense Instruction [DoDI] 6025.13, 2023), OCSs are “clinical and clinical support services on ships and planes, in deployed settings, and in all other circumstances outside an MTF” (DoDI 6025.13, 2023). OCSs can be provided in temporary, mobile, or permanent locations, varying widely in their infrastructure and capabilities depending on the operational needs, resources, and setting. Across direct care settings, the MHS relies on clinical quality management (CQM) processes to ensure that safe, high-quality care is delivered to service members. To date, however, it has been difficult to understand how these quality and patient safety processes vary across MTFs and OCS settings.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) required in Section 706 that a federally funded research and development center conduct “an analysis of the quality and patient safety process for health care provided under the direct care component of the TRICARE program and develop recommendations for the Secretary based on such analysis” (U.S. House of Representatives, 2022b). Prompted by this requirement, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense2 for Personnel and Readiness asked RAND to conduct this assessment. Specifically, we sought to conduct an objective assessment of the quality and patient safety review processes for care delivered in MTFs and OCS settings and identify potential opportunities for improvement. This report presents the findings of RAND’s analysis, as well as several recommendations.”
Authors - Etchegaray, Jason Michel, Chen, Peggy G., Hero, Joachim O., Matthews, Samantha, Yi, Stacey, Hepner, Kimberly A.Subjects
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