3-5.
THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT ACTIVITY
A medical department activity (MEDDAC) provides centralized, specialized treatment
facilities, inpatient and outpatient care and treatment services, diagnostic, consultation
service, and medical laboratory support, if required. The MEDDAC provides these
services for a given health service region.
3-6.
THE MEDICAL CENTER
Medical centers (MEDCEN) are the largest type of treatment facility in the military
health care system. Medical centers support a large geographical area with all of the
services available to military medicine. See below for a list of MEDCENs.
The Seven MEDCENs
Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC), Fort Sam Houston, TX.
Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Augusta, GA.
Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, NC.
Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, WA.
Tripler Army Medical Center, AMC, HI.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC.
William Beaumont Army Medical Center, El Paso, TX.
Figure 3-1. Medical centers.
Section II. ORGANIZATION AND RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN THE
HEALTH CARE FACILITY
3-7.
THE HOSPITAL EXISTS FOR THE PATIENT
The patient should be the central focus within any medical treatment facility.
Without patients, medical facilities would not exist. The medical treatment machine is a
mammoth bureaucracy. Therefore, it is easy to fall into the erroneous thinking that the
machine exists for its own sake. and the patient is only one small cog in the
bureaucratic wheel. The fact is the health care infrastructure does not exist for its own
sake, but in order to promote the physical and emotional well-being of the patient.
MD0064
3-3