FORT RILEY, Kansas –
FORT RILEY, Kansas – What does it mean to be mission-ready—medically, operationally, and as a team? For the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Dr. Stephen Ferrara, the answer lies not in policy memos or PowerPoint decks, but in the work happening inside military hospitals like Irwin Army Community Hospital.
On June 30, Ferrara walked the halls of IACH to understand firsthand how the Military Health System can better support the 1st Infantry Division and its families. He spent the day engaging with healthcare providers, leadership, and staff to assess the facility's capabilities and address concerns about the future of military healthcare at Fort Riley, home to the oldest continuously serving active-duty division in the U.S. Army.
Ferrara, who serves as what he describes as "the CEO of the Military Health System," brings a unique perspective to his role as principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on all health-related matters. His purview includes oversight of the Defense Health Agency (DHA), which now manages all military treatment facilities across the globe, serving 9.5 million beneficiaries worldwide.
"It's really important for me to get to the deck plate, to get to where people are doing the work, so that I can understand it," Ferrara said during his visit. As a former Navy officer, he understands that each military installation has its own unique mission and character. "I find that each site, whether it's a hospital or whether it's an operational unit, is incredibly unique. It has its own mission. It has its own texture, so to speak."
This hands-on leadership approach drives Ferrara's frequent visits to military installations. Rather than relying solely on reports and briefings from the Pentagon, he prioritizes direct engagement with the medical professionals and support staff who deliver care daily. "When you're back at the Pentagon, information that comes to you is always highly curated, highly filtered," he said. "I don't like to think of Fort Riley or Irwin Army Community Hospital as a line on a spreadsheet or a slide on a PowerPoint. I want to see the work that's being done."
Ferrara's visit to Fort Riley was particularly significant given the critical role the Big Red One plays in deploying forces to fight and win the nation’s wars. "The First Division is incredibly important to the Army and to our national security," he said. "So how we can support the healthcare here in rural Kansas is really important."
The Acting Assistant Secretary recognized IACH's vital role in supporting military families, particularly through its robust obstetrics and gynecology program. He highlighted how quality healthcare for military families directly impacts recruitment, retention, and mission readiness. "Health care for military families is one of the most important things for recruitment and retention. It also is really critical to ensuring that our Soldiers are able to stay focused on their mission when they know that they or their family are getting high quality healthcare."
Ferrara stressed the importance of maintaining a "medically ready force" while ensuring deployed Soldiers have confidence their families receive excellent care in their absence. "If they go downrange, they know that their family is in excellent hands," he said, referring to the trust Soldiers must have in their military treatment facility.
Addressing concerns about potential downsizing or changes to IACH's mission, Ferrara was clear in his support for the facility. "I don't want to downsize IACH. That's not my goal," he said. Instead, his focus is on enhancing the hospital's capabilities and ensuring it operates at maximum capacity. "To me, the definition of success for a hospital is a busy hospital doing high volume, high complexity care," Ferrara said. "My goal is to figure out how I can make IACH even more successful. That is the reason I'm here."
The Acting Assistant Secretary acknowledged that IACH represents a significant investment as a relatively new facility that must be optimized for patient care and military readiness training. His vision focuses on ensuring medical personnel maintain their skills through consistent, complex patient care that will prepare them for potential deployment scenarios.
The visit reinforced Ferrara's philosophy that healthcare delivery is fundamentally about trust – what he called "the compact that we form with those families and with those service members." This compact represents a promise to provide the resources, personnel, equipment, and supplies necessary to deliver exceptional care.
Despite acknowledging the financial challenges facing military healthcare, Ferrara expressed admiration for the innovation and adaptability he consistently observes at military treatment facilities. "This is a resource constrained environment. That's not a mystery to anyone," he said. "What I'm always impressed by is people's ability to innovate and to adapt and to solve problems either through sweat equity or through great ideas."
This perspective reflects his understanding that the Military Health System operates as "a giant team sport," where best practices developed at one facility can benefit the entire system. His visits help identify successful innovations that can be shared across the network of military treatment facilities.
As the 1st Infantry Division trains to fight and win the nation’s wars, IACH stands ready, not just with beds and equipment, but with the trust of Soldiers and the care of families. Ferrara’s visit affirmed what those on the front lines already know: readiness begins with care, and care begins here.