Trusted Care In The Air Force Medical Service: Practical Recommendations For Transformation

As the U.S. Air Force Medical Service AFMS continues its journey toward becoming a high reliability organization HRO, the service is presented with a number of challenges at all levels of implementation from the strategic down to the tactical. Importantly, the tactics used in new military programs, policies, and transformations often backfire, leading to cynicism, loss of the hearts and minds of those who will be implementing the new system at the end-user level, and ultimately a subpar end product. We can gain much wisdom from literature on effectively leading changes, from private organizations and companies that have pursued similar transformations, and from previous failed implementations of military programs. Although the AFMS faces a number of significant obstacles in its transition to the HRO culture, I propose a number of recommendations which can ease the transformation at the tactical level and significantly benefit the planning and successful implementation of Trusted Care Transformation across the AFMS.