Sourcing and Global Distribution of Medical Supplies.

摘要

The Department of Defense (DoD) provides medical care to its service members whether they are at their home station or deployed, at locations all over the world. To provide this patient care, DoD must ensure that its health care providers have the proper quantity and quality of medical materiel resources. To accomplish the mission of providing medical care to service members outside the continental United States (OCONUS), DoD procures medical materiel in the United States and ships it to OCONUS treatment facilities and operational units. Procuring and distributing medical materiel carries a large annual cost: DoD spends approximately $4 billion on these activities to support care facilities within the United States, and an additional $750 million to procure and distribute medical materiel for OCONUS.2 When the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) directed all military organizations to find efficiencies,3 the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD AT&L) directed all military organizations in its reporting structure to initiate studies and analyses to identify potential efficiency opportunities.