711th Human Performance Wing helping to transform Periodic Health Assessment process

  • Published
  • By Kim Bowden
  • 711th Human Performance Wing
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- In September, the Department of Defense released updated Tri-Service Periodic Health Assessment Program guidance, via a new instruction. The 711th Human Performance Wing’s Human Systems Integration Directorate -- part of the Air Force Research Laboratory -- is the Air Force facilitator for the roll-out of the new guidance, which affects anyone in flight and operational medicine, as well as any service member in need of a PHA.

To help with that rollout, experts in the directorate’s HSI Analysis division transformed the way the Air Force develops processes and products related to PHAs.

“We implemented an agile development system to allow better responsiveness to customer needs for Base Operational Medicine Clinic products,” said Lt. Col. Rob Vandawaker, division chief. “These agile methods allow for incremental development and field testing to allow continuous process improvement to iteratively create a polished final product that benefits our military treatment facilities and, ultimately, individual Airmen.”

Along with the rollout, the division worked with the Aeromedical Services Information Management System program manager to develop an online template that documents patient information within ASIMS.

“Previously, patient information was documented on a PDF form that had to be digitally moved to multiple locations and finally uploaded to another system,” Vandawaker said. “This integrated form in ASIMS auto-populates some information already contained within the system, reducing workload on the technicians and providers and streamlining the process.”

The division’s efforts for PHA rollout and transition involved extensive testing and collection of user feedback.

“We released our initial products to Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, at the end of September for feedback on the processes and the new implementation of the forms in ASMIS,” explained Vandawaker. “Our division incorporated that feedback into our products and trial training that was pushed out to the remainder of our test bases. We had sessions with each test site and were able to incorporate many feedback items, clarify other questions to address in training, or log them to be considered at a later date.”

Vandawaker and the rest of the HSI Analysis division took what they learned from the test bases and developed comprehensive training for the entire Air Force. Training for the major commands was held in two sessions on Oct. 27, and training for the service’s 76 military treatment facilities was conducted in three sessions on Oct. 31. All the training was conducted using the Blackboard learning management system, in collaboration with the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, another 711 HPW mission unit.

“The entire BOMC development team -- the HSI Analysis division, USAFSAM, and the Air Force Surgeon General’s Aerospace Operations and Policy division -- put a focus on training,” said Vandawaker. “We embedded training development personnel with the subject matter experts developing the material, so the products we created require minimal training to understand and use. For the training that is required, we included a step-by-step walk-through of the material as seen by the technician/provider. Our primary goal is to make this rollout as user-friendly as possible.”