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Live in the West Region? There is now a referral approval waiver in place through March 31, 2025. Learn More. Also, you have until March 31 to set up your payment info if you pay by EFT, credit card, or debit card. This is for TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Select, TYA, TRS, and TRR plans. If you miss this deadline, you will be disenrolled back to Jan. 1. Visit www.tricare.mil/west today.

July 27, 2021

New Markets, MHS Transformation and You: What Does it All Mean?

The Military Health System's transformation is quickly accelerating as the Defense Health Agency launched 10 new markets in locations across the country on July 26.

Photo By Douglas Stutz | One of the more visible – and certainly mobile – examples of the Puget Sound Military Health System collaborative joint effort is the patient shuttle between Madigan Army Medical Center and Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Bremerton. The shuttle operates Monday-Friday, excluding federal holidays, and departs Madigan from the Main Medical Mall North entrance at 8:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. The shuttle departs NMRTC Bremerton from the Urgent Care Clinic entrance, second floor, under the Skybridge, at 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. In order to ensure the safety of all during the pandemic and help stop the spread of COVID, all riders are required to wear a mask or face covering while riding the shuttle. Those exhibiting any COVID-19 symptoms are asked to refrain from riding the shuttle and seek proper medical attention. For more information, please call 253-968-6467 (Official Navy photo by Douglas H Stutz, NHB/NMRT

July 26, 2021

Puget Sound Military Health System Certified by Defense Health Agency

By Carrie Petershagan, PSMHS —The Puget Sound Military Health System (MHS) has become the latest to certify as a MHS market. This marks the next step in a long history of collaboration with staff at Army, Navy and Air Force military medical treatment facilities (MTF) in the Pacific Northwest.

The U.S. Air Force has made various changes to the service’s dress and appearance guidance during 2021, one of which being female hair grooming standards.

July 23, 2021

Improving readiness for a diverse force

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Throughout 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Air Force rolled out several changes to the dress and appearance Air Force Instruction. Most of the changes have been seen in female-specific regulations. Significant changes to the restrictions on female hair early on in 2021 included allowing braids and ponytails in all uniforms, operational safety permitting.

The STAT Enclosure allows medical staff to safely treat and transport critically ill patients while significantly reducing droplets. Photo courtesy of Olifant Medical.

July 22, 2021

AFRL SBIR Partnership Thinks Outside of the Box with Covid-19 Enclosure

Article written by Jim Ingram - Rising to the world’s daily challenges through technology is the very fiber of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. That resilient drive and dedication endures with a new medical device inspired by the heroic staff battling COVID-19.

Lt. Gen. Robert I. Miller, U.S. Air Force Surgeon General, discusses the future of the Air Force Medical Service and his priorities at the Pentagon, July 7, 2021. Miller assumed his role on June 4. (U.S. Air Force photo by Shireen Bedi) (This image was cropped to emphasize the subject)

July 20, 2021

Air Force Surgeon General outlines priorities, future of USAF medicine

From turning a corner in the pandemic and Military Health System transformation, to readying his medics for the next major threat, Lt. Gen. Robert I. Miller, U.S. Air Force Surgeon General, knows the key to the Air Force Medical Service’s success comes from its most important asset - its people.

July 12, 2021

Innovation working group strives to enhance METC training

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas — Experienced instructors, state-of-the-art classrooms and laboratories, and degree pathway programs are some of the many features that give the Medical Education and Training Campus at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, an edge in producing highly-trained, military allied health professionals.

Kentucky Army National Guard Col. Jesse Huff, the outgoing preventive medicine officer for the Kentucky Medical Detachment, and Capt. Bryan Parker, the incoming preventive medicine officer, use a cardboard box with dry ice to bait ticks for collection at Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center, Greenville, Kentucky, June 1, 2021. Huff has been collecting ticks to aid in prevention of tick-borne illnesses for more than 20 years. (photo by U.S. Army National Guard Sgt. Lance Mudd)

July 8, 2021

Ticks!

GREENVILLE, Ky. – One Soldier’s passion for preventive medicine became an unusual annual tradition at Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center in Greenville, Ky.

Researchers at the Army’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology develop the first fiber with digital capabilities. The fiber can sense, store, analyze, and infer activity when sewn into a piece of clothing. (Courtesy MIT)

July 8, 2021

Uniforms with Programmable Fiber could Transmit Data and More

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Army-funded research has resulted in the development of a programmable fiber that could transmit data from military uniforms.