Jonathan Woodson stepped down from his former roles of assistant defense secretary for health affairs and head of the Military Health System Saturday, DoD News reported Friday.
Lisa Ferdinando writes that the U.S. Army Reserve brigadier general will return to Boston University’s School of Medicine and will help lead efforts to establish a new institute focused on health systems innovation and policy.
Woodson told DoD News he also plans to resume his military service.
In that interview with DoD News, Woodson discussed the work to stand up in Defense Health Agency that wrapped up in October 2013 as the Pentagon sought to create a single organization to oversee Tricare, medical information technology and other care initiatives for soldiers.
“As our costs rise, it competes with the ability of the rest of the organization to train, man, equip and modernize the force. So we needed to create a new, joint structure that allowed us to make enterprise decisions in an agile way to meet the needs in the future yet control costs and so the Defense Health Agency was born,” Woodson said to DoD News.
Woodson also described six main areas he focused on during his tenure such as modernize MHS, define and deliver medical features and manpower needed, balance force structure, invest and expand strategic partnerships, transform TRICARE and aid the expansion of the global health engagement strategy.
