The U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency, a subordinate organization of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, welcomed two new participants June 2016 to the Program Management - Acquisition Internship Program, a one-year program designed to develop experts in medical acquisition and logistics project management.

PM-AIP was developed in 2015, after an assessment of the Army medical acquisition workforce revealed that while 75 percent of Army Medicine's 350 acquisition positions were filled with personnel who had achieved some level of acquisition certification, only 15 percent had appropriate grade and level of certification required for the position. As part of the solution, the Medical Acquisition Consultant to The Surgeon General launched the PM-AIP. The program includes instructional training to achieve Level II certification in program management through the Defense Acquisition University. Additionally, PM-AIP participants, including both Army officers and federal civilians, gain hands-on experience in project and product management at USAMRMC. While gaining hands on experience, interns learn how to transition capability gaps and requirements into materiel solutions for the warfighter.

"It is essential that Army Medicine build the bench of acquisition expertise," said Col. David Gibson, USAMMA Commander and Medical Acquisition Consultant to The Surgeon General. "Developing medical materiel solutions is unlike other acquisition processes because of complex regulatory requirements. Medical product acquisition is managed by integrating diverse functions and communities, such as users, laboratories, commercial industry, resource management, U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory affairs, and logistics."

The new PM-AIP participants include Capt. James Greene and Capt. Bryan Shrives. Greene is a health care management information officer, or 70D, who most recently served as the chief information officer at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Shrives is a medical logistics officer, or 70K, who was previously assigned to the Army Medical Department Center and School's Capability Development Integration Directorate, which is part of U.S. Army Health Readiness Center of Excellence. Both interns come to the PM-AIP with widely differing career experiences; however, they share the same goal of building their expertise in acquisition project management.

"I had a lot of operational experience, but I wanted to grow my knowledge on a strategic level," said Shrives, whose 10-year Army career includes 26 months in Iraq and 8 months in Afghanistan. "I am excited to learn more about USAMMA, from a perspective of a former capability developer, so I can really see how we translate requirements into products that are fielded to the warfighter."

Shrives will spend his internship at USAMMA working in Project Management Medical Evacuation, which is responsible for managing the subsystems and equipment installed on UH-60A/L Black Hawk helicopters. The medical evacuation fleet consists of more than 600 dedicated Blackhawk aircraft. Currently, 400 of those aircraft are legacy UH-60L aircraft that require conversion to achieve capability similar to the more current medical evacuation aircraft, the HH60M. The USAMMA Project Management Medical Evacuation has fielded more than 200 new patient-handling systems to replace antiquated litter carousels and added the Forward Looking Infrared mission sensors, which provide aircraft teams with the ability to locate patients and landing zone obstacles.

Greene will support the USAMMA Project Management Integrated Clinical Systems, which serves as the materiel developer and lifecycle manager for all imaging, image management and major clinical systems that integrate with the Department of Defense's electronic medical record. USAMMA's Project Management Integrated Clinical Systems executes a patient-centric, "system-of-systems" approach to ensure timely delivery of affordable, sustainable, interoperable and information assurance compliant capabilities in support of clinical requirements for fixed and deployed military treatment facilities. Specific responsibilities include managing Picture Archiving and Communication Systems, imaging, and teleradiology program initiatives; executing the Technology Assessment and Requirements Analysis program; and managing information assurance requirements for designated medical devices.

At the completion of the PM-AIP, participants enter into a two-year utilization assignment to reinforce what they have learned. Maj. Torrance Beck was the first intern to complete the PM-AIP at USAMMA and is now continuing to serve his utilization assignment at USAMMA as the deputy project manager of Project Management Medical Devices.

USAMMA Deputy to the Commander for Acquisition Dr. Tyler Bennett added, "We are thrilled to welcome Capt. Greene and Capt. Shrives to the PM-AIP. We are confident that they will not only excel at gaining new experiences and training that will build their acquisition careers but also we believe that each will add great value to the USAMMA team."