Aug. 28, 2025 | By Robert Hammer, Defense Health Agency Communications
With the theme of “Empowering Care, Enhancing Readiness: Harnessing Health IT Innovation,” the 2025 Defense Health Information Technology Symposium kicked off in Nashville, Tennessee, with Pat Flanders, chief information officer for the Defense Health Agency, addressing more than 2,300 attendees Aug. 26.
Besides his role as the DHA CIO, Flanders oversees the DHA Program Executive Office, Medical Systems, which strengthens the DHA by enabling the use of resource data to make better-informed decisions, implementing enhanced cybersecurity protections, and improving fiscal auditability.
Flanders described how his team is “responsible for ensuring the products and services under its purview enable combat support in competition, crisis, and conflict, and ensure the full continuum of health delivery from the foxhole to the home front.”
DHA’s information technology enterprise leverages the strength and sophistication of a unified network—the Medical Community of Interest—and legacy systems to support DHA’s mission as a combat support agency by ensuring a reliable IT infrastructure worldwide for its military hospitals and clinics, as well as the 9.5 million beneficiaries DHA supports. Flanders said his various divisions do this by:
- Protecting and securing the medical network and data by meeting Department of Defense cybersecurity requirements
- Facilitating continuous support to DHA’s clinical care enterprise
- Aligning resources to modernize the DHA IT infrastructure with the work of DOD chief information officers and other DOD agencies
- Driving financial auditability compliance
The DHA-sponsored symposium showcases the latest developments in health IT, featuring insights from leaders in government, the military, and industry. The symposium provides an opportunity to share knowledge and innovative ideas, discuss lessons learned, and introduce new developments that enhance the military healthcare delivery system.
Kathleen Berst, acting DHA assistant director for support and component acquisition executive, talked about how the DHA supports mission readiness by “rethinking the way we’re doing business,” and how the DHA needs to leverage partnerships to modernize military health.
Berst said, “We have a complicated mission, supporting our combatant command partners, our military service partners, and more. But forums such as DHITS help ensure we can bring the best of the military, government, industry, and academia together to deliver on that mission.”
Military health leaders also discussed the operational impact of technology. Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said, “We’re focused on a mission that cuts across so many sectors, delivering smarter, integrated, data-driven health care for service members and their families.”
Data, Ferrara explained, is at the heart of this digital transformation. “The point here isn’t simply about having data. It’s about building systems that translate data into insight and actions so that we can deliver better outcomes at the point of care and across the continuum,” he said. Ferrara called for building a digitally enabled, globally connected system of readiness and health care that allows deployed medics to consult with specialists anywhere in the world instantly. “This is a future in which data is no longer a barrier, but a bridge,” he said.
