U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
The Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, comprises health care professionals (e.g. physicians, dentists, nurses, veterinarians, public health administrators, etc.) who are loaned to Federal agencies with a requirement for health care duties. Such duties might include clinical treatment, research, or management, as well as deployment in response to public health crises.
Ordinarily, these uniformed officers serve extensive tours of duty with agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Prisons, the Indian Health Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Commissioned Corps sought to transform itself into a more mobile, deployable force that can meet the health care needs of underserved and hardship areas while improving its capability to combat threats of terrorism and natural disasters. This required a different and more flexible force management system–one that is capable of identifying valid staffing needs and satisfying those needs with a trained, motivated, professional force of health care officers.
The Public Health Service contracted with The Lewin Group to design and execute this transformation, with HumRRO serving as subcontractor. HumRRO's role chiefly focused on training needs and the structures required to meet the needs of the transformed Corps. We analyzed officer basic training and offered recommendations for its restructuring to ensure that officers are fully indoctrinated into the Corps and are available for deployment immediately upon graduation. We also examined the distance learning requirements of the future Corps and developed a document that provided guidance for decision makers in terms of what should be trained in this manner, and whether the materials should be developed in-house or purchased off the shelf.
As a result of HumRRO's analysis and recommendations, the Commissioned Corps initiated a significant overhaul of the Basic Officer Training Corps. Improvements included a more regular offering of the course, increased efforts to ensure that officers enroll as early in their careers as possible, implementation of prerequisites to allow for more content coverage during training, and broadening course content so that graduates are immediately available for a wider range of assignments and deployments than had previously been the case.
HumRRO is also working with the Corps to revise the current Commissioned Officers Effectiveness Report (COER). We are conducting interviews and focus groups with stakeholders, users of the current system, and supervisors of the agencies that employ Corps officers. We will use this information to develop a performance evaluation instrument that focuses on effective behaviors and that will guide raters and reviewers in making accurate evaluations. Developing the instrument is only one step in developing an effective performance management system, which will require organizational changes. We will assist the Corps in implementing these changes as part of its Transformation process.
