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Army Reserve mission provides medical training, community support

  • Published
  • By Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Moore
  • 99th Regional Support Command
JOINT BASE MCQUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  Members of the Army Reserve's 3rd Medical Command (Deployment Support) and U.S. Navy Medical Corps participated in an Innovative Readiness Training mission at the 99th Regional Support Command's Equipment Concentration Site 99 here.
Participants inventoried and packaged dental and optical kits during the training exercise in the
60,000-square-foot, solar-powered, climate-controlled facility. ECS 99 provides the 3rd MCDS storage space for medical, dental, veterinary, forward surgical and early entry hospital equipment, as well as maintenance capabilities for bio-medical equipment and X-ray, ventilator and defibrillator repair.

"This is a great asset for Army medicine," said Bernard Olszewski, ECS 99 manager.

In addition to this medical storage and maintenance facility, the 99th RSC provides essential services and support throughout the nation's northeast region, caring for all Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to approximately 330 training, maintenance and storage facilities from Maine to Virginia.

By offering these services to the Army Reserve's medical community, ECS 99 and the 99th RSC are better able to provide the support that enables unit commanders to focus solely on training and growing leaders to ensure the Army Reserve has the skills necessary to meet future mobilization demands.

IRT represents a partnership between requesting community organizations and the military. Individual IRT Projects provide real-world training for service members while supporting the needs of America's under-served communities, and provide commanders another option to meet their mobilization and readiness requirements, enhance morale and contribute to military retention and recruitment.

During the staffing for the IRT support mission, it was determined that the best method to manage costs and ensure patient safety was to assign responsibility to the 3rd MCDS to support the IRT medical mission during fiscal year 2015.

"This is 3rd MCDS' first pack out for the IRT mission since the command has taken oversight," said Master Sgt. Charles C. Marshall, IRT NCO in charge. "The equipment and medical supplies will immediately go from Ohio to Alabama for the (IRT) mission which runs through the rest of June. At the end of the missions, the remaining medical supplies equipment will come back to JB MDL for reconstitution."

The Army Reserve is managing costs in other ways as well. During fiscal year 2014, the 3rd MCDS, U.S. Army Reserve Command IRT program manager and USARC Surgeon's Office noticed several peculiarities within the IRT program that could lead to the duplication of materials and potential waste of medical materiel and IRT funds. The most serious possibility was the lack of accountability on units' property books and no servicing agency to maintain the equipment.

Currently, over $300,000 in excess medical materiel and over 60 boxes have been inventoried and packaged from FY 14 IRT medical missions for the FY 15 mission. Process improvements made to the IRT support mission are designed to reduce cost and increase savings by enforcement, standardization, properly performing services and maintaining medical equipment to prevent unneeded purchases.