Closing of Walter Reed

I heard a news item this morning about the closing of the Walter Reed medical center. It made me reflect on a project of which I am still quite proud, and which guarantees that connections to Walter Reed will continue.

In 2007, when the stories about the abysmal conditions at the hospital broke in the Washington Post, Ethan Katsh and I were pretty sure that the Army would quickly clean up the physical mess, but we were equally sure that long term dispute or conflict management would not be part of the vocabulary they would use to address the problems at the medical center.

Using NMB Board Member Harry Hoglander’s connections with Congressman John Tierney’s office, Ethan, Harry, and I got a meeting with the new Deputy Commander at Walter Reed, General Tucker. To make a long story short, we were able to convince him that an Ombudsman Office at Walter Reed would help the Army address more than broken air conditioners and peeling paint. To his credit, he immediately saw the utility in creating an Ombudsman Office that would serve all of Army MEDCOM, not just Walter Reed. Also to his credit, he brought in Colonel Becky Baker, who headed the team that created the Army MEDCOM Ombudsman Office, which now has offices around the world at Army medical facilities, and which is offering dispute resolution and management services to literally thousands of wounded soldiers, families, and medical professionals every year. Not coincidentally, given the work Ethan and I have done in online dispute resolution, there is an ODR component to the Ombudsman Office, too.

The ghost of Walter Reed Army Medical Center hovers over all of the Ombudsman Offices.

The Army MEDCOM Ombudsman Office web site is at:
http://medcomombudsman.amedd.army.mil/index.html