Family-Centered Care
The services offered at NNMC are specially designed to promote ‘‘Family-Centered Care,” an approach to the planning, delivery and evaluation of health care to encourage partnerships among our providers, patients and their families. Respect, empowerment, choices and flexibility embody the concept of Family-Centered Care. At NNMC, we recognize emotional and social supports are integral components of quality health care, whether dealing with the birth of a child or any health care issue. The Family-Centered Care practiced at NNMC leads to better health outcomes and greater patient, family and staff satisfaction.

Customer Service
NNMC is known for excellent customer service, having received numerous awards in this area from the DefenseDepartment. It’s our constant goal to:

• Support customer advocacy and customer service issues.
• Constantly reaffirm the command’s dedication to superior customer service.

Patients choosing NNMC for care expect not only clinical excellence, but also personalized customer attention, and they receive it. Our current Customer Service Program includes command-wide customer service training and a customer advocate at each clinic to serve as a liaison between patients, the hospital staff and administration. The customer advocate is the first point of contact for concerns or comments regarding health care at NNMC. The friendly staff at the Customer Service Desk and clinic windows will either answer your questions and concerns directly or will refer you to a staff member who can better help you.

Ethics Committee
Patient care sometimes leads to complicated situations involving quality of life issues and difficult life-and-death decisions. NNMC’s Ethics Committee identifies these issues and facilitates open communication among those involved in patient care. NNMC maximizes each patient’s care by including family members, attending or consulting physicians, nurses, or other members of the patient’s health care team. Anyone directly involved in the care of a patient can request an Ethics Consult. An Ethics Committee member is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To receive individual consultation, call (800) 759-8888. The Ethics pager PIN number is 1635190. The Ethics Committee also periodically invites all interested patients and staff to roundtable discussions, where real-life, anonymous case studies are used for discussion purposes. To learn about the agenda for current roundtable discussions, visit the Ethics ConsultationProgram on the NNMC Web site at www.bethesda.med.navy.mil.

Executive Health Carefor Our Nation's Leaders
NNMC’s Executive Health Care Clinic brings world-class medical care to the nation’s leaders, ensuring availability, flexibility, security, and confidentiality at all times. These leaders include the U.S. President, the U.S. Vice President, members of the U.S. Congress, U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and Flag and General Officers. NNMC’s Executive Health Care Department also provides care for other authorized government officials, beneficiaries, foreign military and embassy personnel who the Navy Secretary and Defense Secretary designates.

The Clinical Investigations Department
The GEAR Center promotes excellence in health care and militarily relevant research and human subject protection. The GEAR Center focuses on:

• Support for investigators offering consultation and education in literature search, research design and statistics, as well as offering financial support for beginning investigators.
• Protection of human research subjects through its support of the Scientific Review Panel and the Institutional Review Board.

Healthcare Mediator
The Healthcare Mediator Program is designed to resolve complex health care disputes, issues or concerns at the lowest level and earliest opportunity - ensuring a fair resolution process for all involved parties. The emphasis of the program is ‘‘doing the right thing” when there are unanticipated adverse outcomes of care. The Healthcare Mediator promotes an environment of transparency where unexpected results of care, treatment and services are openly and honestly disclosed, where system vulnerabilities are recognized and a commitment is made to process improvements. The Healthcare Mediator is involved with patients and providers at the time of service delivery with typical interventions surrounding documented or perceived medical errors, unanticipated outcomes, sentinel events, expected or unexpected deaths, dissatisfied with treatment outcomes or quality of care received. Early intervention is critical in the achievement of meaningful resolutions. This service is available to all beneficiaries.

Military Family and USNS ComfortOmbudsman
NNMC’s Military Family Ombudsman and USNSComfort Ombudsman provide information, resources and supportfor all active duty service members and their families, including the spouses and children of active duty members, their parents and siblings. Ombudsmen will always keep all problems, issues, concerns and resolutions in the strictest confidence. You may contact an Ombudsman seven days a week, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m., by calling the Command Duty Office at (301) 295-4611.

C.W. Bill Young DoD Marrow Donor Program
Each year over 30,000 Americans are diagnosed with a disease for which a bone marrow or cord blood stem cell transplant is the only possible cure. Although the registry now contains over 5 million potential donors, there are still many patients who are not able to find a lifesaving match. The National Marrow Donor Program and the C.W. Bill Young DoD Marrow Donor Program are continually working to register new donors, in the hope that one day everyone afflicted with these diseases will be able to find a match. All active-duty personnel, civil service employees and family members age 18 to 60 years old can donate. Not everybody gets called back, but the more people who register the more likely there will be match. To register as a donor in the National Capital Area, civilians should contact National Institutes of Health Marrow Donor Center at (301) 496-0572. Active duty military should contact the C.W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Center at (800) MARROW3.