AFSO 21 helps McConnell streamline medical processes for patient care

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Trevor Rhynes
  • 22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  Members of the 22nd Medical Group recently conducted an Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century event to improve the process for managing profiles system for Airmen with injuries.

Various agencies came together to prepare for the Air Force Medical Home program, a new process the Air Force is about to switch to, in which Airmen from the same squadron would be seen by the same primary care managers.

"The event was designed to address physical profiles; we had two meetings about it," said Capt. Michael Marx, 22nd Aerospace Medicine Squadron Flight Medicine physician assistant. "One happened in May, and we did another one in June. During that time we looked at the different kinds of profiles, the different squadrons and different Air Force Specialty Codes that all the profiles from the past year have been coming from."

The team found that approximately 70 percent of the profiles were going to Airmen who had issues with their lower back or their legs, knees, ankles and feet.

"We looked at those to determine not only the volume, but how we could get people off profiles quicker and how we could prevent Airmen from needing profiles for reoccurring issues," Marx said. "That was our main focus of how we could improve the process involved with profiles. Although we're number one in Air Mobility Command for Individual Medical Readiness and want to remain a frontrunner, we're still not perfect, so we wanted to focus on how we could improve."

Improving processes is necessary to ensuring that a process operates at its full capacity, as one participant of the AFSO 21 event said, it's about doing what's best for the patient.

"The recently concluded AFSO 21 event at McConnell helped us to understand how to better streamline medical processes, and manage the profile system effectively," said Alicia Foster, 22nd Medical Operations Squadron's nurse manager.  "We are able to focus on the things that bring value to the processes so as to better care for our patients needs and give them the most efficient care they deserve."