The deputy commanding general of the Army Reserve Medical Command, who is dual-hatted as the Assistant Surgeon General for Mobilization, Readiness and Army Reserve Affairs Office in the Office of the Army Surgeon General, championed artificial intelligence, or AI, at an Aug. 20 “Service Leadership Roundtable” at the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium.

“Certainly, AI--we talked a lot about that--where we're probably not far enough with leveraging the data that we have and taking the human and augmenting them with some artificial intelligence capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Thad Collard, who was at the symposium in his assistant surgeon general capacity representing the Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Mary K. Izugirre.

“We can streamline some of the bureaucratic processes that we have, some of the legacy systems and ways that we've done business certainly-- AI will be revolutionary in that way,” the general said.

Collard said AI also has the potential to solve problems.

“Then we think about how we do research,” he said. “I think that for us, the Army Medical Research and Development Command and falling under DHA it's important we align our research efforts to provide the tools and technology that we need right at the front lines and integrate it all the way back to the fixed facility.”

The general said he is excited about the possibilities of AI.

“We'll see more and more of that and if that just doesn't get everyone in the room excited, leveraging the government partners, academia and certainly the national system of health care to improve it-- I don't know what does,” he said.

“That is really exciting to think about what we could be without limiting ourselves by what we have done,” he said.

Collard also said that improvements in Defense Health Agency information systems could better the health and readiness of servicemembers and their families.

Despite the resource constraints, defense IT professionals must continue to break down barriers, eliminate some of that bureaucracy and do the work that allows customers and providers to use the platforms everyone relies on to build readiness and access to care.

In the civilian world, many institutional experiences have been improved with apps, he said.

“If we want to get on a waiting list remotely, we can just use our app,” he said. “If we want to get on a reservation for a restaurant, we can do it on an app. If we want to get something delivered to us, we can just do it on an app and it will deliver it sometimes the same day.”

This more effortless experience has not reached military health care yet, he said.

“If we want to do any of those things, we have to call an extra time, potentially go make an extra trip in, and we lose valuable resources by doing those things, not only from a patient's perspective but also from a health care standpoint, from a staff standpoint,” he said.

“If we can bring the joy to our health care teams in the health care delivery setting that will retain individuals and that will recruit individuals,” Collard said.

“The innovation that we're doing shows we're leading the way again in the health care space that we've done so often across our history of our military, but also as we do those things it will allow us to focus more on the readiness so that we can increase the level of individual proficiencies,” he said.

The general said that for Army Reserve Soldiers and National Guardsmen, the obstacles to health readiness can be daunting.

There is also the challenge of seeking care if there is no military medical facility close by, he said.

“Then, once they they get there, there's some challenges with working through the system as a non-TRICARE beneficiary and not in a duty status,” he said.

“Certainly, the reserve health readiness program and the shift between contractors has had some hiccups,” he said. “It's getting much better, and DHA has been doing a great job homing in on what needed enhancements need to be made to bridge that.”

T. Patrick Flanders, the program executive officer for medical systems and the Defense Health Agency's chief information officer, led the roundtable.

The other participants were U.S. Public Health Service Rear Admiral Tracy Farrill, the Military Health Service health record functional champion; U.S. Public Health Service Rear Admiral Paul “PJ” Jung, the U.S. Coast Guard’s surgeon general and chief medical officer; Dr. Michael McGinnis, the director of the U.S. Navy Medicine Civilian Corps and the executive director of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery; Dr. Michael Malanoski, the deputy director of the Defense Health Agency and Stephen M. Mounts, the U.S. Air Force associate deputy surgeon general.

Flanders said he was thrilled to have Collard and the other panel participants from different uniformed branches.

The moderator said he had met the general before, but he did not know until the panel discussion that Collard also served as the AR-MEDCOM deputy commanding general.

“It was perfect when the questions came up about the reserves and those issues,” he said.

“The purpose of the panel was to have representation from the military departments, and USPHS and the reserves, and have that opportunity to voice their equities in this,” he said.

“As the moderator, I just thought that was kind of fun,” he said. “The questions that we had came from a survey asking what people wanted to hear—I thought it was good. We got to hear opinions from all the military departments.”

Flanders said he came away from the panel confident that the different departments were reaching a consensus about what they needed from their information systems.

“What was really nice, being here for several years, was to see how they were all thinking similarly now,” he said.

“Five years ago, it wasn’t quite that way—five years ago, it was very different.”