Dr. Stephen Ferrara, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, visits Madigan Army Medical Center
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Dr. Stephen Ferrara, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, visits Madigan Army Medical Center
Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of defense for Health Affairs, visited Madigan Army Medical Center on July 14, 2025. Ferrara met with hospital and installation leadership, and toured the facility to see “how it fits into the larger MHS mission and the national defense strategy,” he said. “My top priority, and one that the team is executing on with incredible vigor, is the focus on readiness.” Ferrara provided insight into the future of the MHS and the critical role medical readiness has in ensuring maximum lethality of our nation’s warfighters.“We want to be able to tell a commanding officer in the community if they have 150 sailors on a submarine or 1,000 soldiers in a battalion, that they are all ready to go,’ Ferrara said. “Our team at Madigan is doing an amazing job at an amazing time of year,” he said, “and we want to make sure our people are ready to fight”
MADIGAN ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. – In an ongoing effort to receive feedback from military hospitals and clinics around the world, Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of defense for Health Affairs, visited Madigan Army Medical Center on July 14, 2025, to discuss the future of the Military Health System and much more with Madigan’s staff.
During an interview after an open forum town hall with staff, Ferrara provided insight into the future of the MHS and the critical role medical readiness has in ensuring maximum lethality of our nation’s warfighters.
“It’s the people in the Military Health System where we have one of the greatest healthcare teams in America doing the work,” he said. “My top priority, and one that the team is executing on with incredible vigor, is the focus on readiness.”
Pictured from left to right: Madigan Commander, U.S. Army Col. Hope M. Williamson-Younce guides Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of defense for Health Affairs, on a tour of Madigan Army Medical Center. Ferrara visited the center on July 14, 2025, touring the facility, learning firsthand how the center supports the Military Health System mission, and discussing the future of the MHS and the critical role of medical readiness for warfighters. (Photo Credit: Sean Hall) VIEW ORIGINAL
“Readiness is making sure our warfighters are fit to fight tonight. Whenever the need arises, our people are ready to go. We want to be able to tell a commanding officer in the line community if they have 150 sailors on a submarine or 1,000 soldiers in a battalion, that should they need them, they are all ready to go tonight. Our team is doing an amazing job at that,” explained Ferrara, who deployed four times when he served as an active duty U.S. Navy surgeon.
His visit to Madigan was part of a broader series of visits to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He first visited Naval Hospital Bremerton before meeting with leaders at Madigan Army Medical Center and I Corps Headquarters on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, followed by visits to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Eielson Air Force Base, and Fort Wainwright in Alaska.
“The biggest take away is a more comprehensive understanding of the mission here, not only the Pacific Northwest, but how it fits into the larger MHS mission and the national defense strategy because every one of these regions is an important piece in the puzzle when we deploy and we fight in a much more joint and distributed manner,” Ferrara said.
He also spoke on strategic partnerships between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs as part of the future of the MHS.
“The DOD and VA partnerships are very important to the success of the MHS. There are already some very robust partnerships,” he said.
For advanced trauma care training, MHS physicians, nurses, medics, and corpsmen are already working in Portland at Oregon Health Sciences University and in Seattle at Harborview Medical Center. These are two world-renowned trauma centers, providing “an excellent opportunity for them to get really high-value sets and reps to keep their skills sharp. I think there’s an opportunity to even leverage those partnerships more,” Ferrara said.
He also highlighted the work of Madigan’s interventional pulmonology team and their cutting-edge work with robotic bronchoscopy, taking in more VA patients and offering state-of-the-art, cutting-edge lung cancer treatment for veterans.
“That partnership not only will extend to the patients that have pulmonary issues, but it builds bridges, and it creates relationships that are translatable across the whole medical landscape,” he said.
Ferrara also spoke on the importance of leveraging human and physical infrastructure, assets, and strategic partnerships as part of the MHS mission, “All of the different assets we have inform those decisions. And particularly in a resource-constrained environment, we have to look at where we have our greatest assets and our greatest opportunities to either be able to strongly leverage both human and physical infrastructure where it already resides, and also, again, with where we can leverage partnerships with civilian or with other government agencies,” he explained.
During his visit, Ferrara met with hospital and installation leadership, toured the facility, took questions from staff during a town hall in Letterman Auditorium, and recognized several Madigan personnel at the town hall’s conclusion.
The MHS is one of America’s largest and most complex healthcare institutions, and the world’s preeminent military healthcare delivery operation. The MHS saves lives on the battlefield, combats infectious disease around the world, and is responsible for providing health services through direct and private sector care to approximately 9.5 million beneficiaries, composed of uniformed service members, military retirees, and family members.
To learn more about the MHS, visit: https://health.mil/About-MHS