Merger creates new health organization

  • Published
  • By Rudy Purificato
  • 311th Human Systems Wing
BROOKS CITY-BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Two organizations here merged recently to form the Air Force Institute for Operational Health to enhance public health, improve disease surveillance and detection, and make sure America's warfighters are fit and healthy.

The institute merges the Air Force Institute for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Risk Analysis with the Development Center for Operational Medicine. Officials are calling the merger a progressive move that will further bolsters the Air Force's ability to respond to global health challenges affecting America's warfighters and civilian communities,

Describing the merger as a historic new chapter in Air Force operational medicine, a former Air Force surgeon general praised the Brooks and San Antonio medical communities' contributions that supported Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"What you, the medical community, have done in this war has been described by the Air Force chief of staff as being the best response in the history of warfare," said retired Lt. Gen. (Dr.) P.K. Carlton.

After conveying a litany of operational medicine accomplishments, including aeromedical evacuation successes and a disease-battle rate that was 20 percent lower than that of Operation Desert Storm, Carlton said, "You have done your job superbly."

The new organization’s leader, Eric Stephens, describes it as a sort of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This merger will bring together the strengths of the two organizations and create a broader charter while building in flexibility and agility," Stephens said.

Those strengths include a deployable nuclear, biological and chemical detection and protection capability; a diverse group of scientists, engineers and medical doctors; and a ‘think-tank’ mission.

"(The institute) will have the responsibility to promote global health and protect Air Force warriors and Air Force communities with a focus on the air and space expeditionary force," Stephens said. "We will do this through global surveillance, detection, protection and prevention both in deployed and at-home settings."

Additionally, Stephens said the institute's expanded operational-medicine outreach is important to civilian and military communities worldwide because of terrorists and rogue states threatening global health and security with possible weapons of mass destruction.

"Our motto is 'sustaining readiness through healthy communities.' Today's communities are not defined by fences, but instead by geographic regions made up of military installations and civilian communities," Stephens said. "Many Air Force members live in those civilian communities and are protected by local firemen, police and medical providers. The key is to ensure all of these support organizations are talking and planning together before a disaster occurs." (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)