Military Health System makes allocations count

The process was used to allocate funds for this inpatient tower.

The Military Health System (MHS) of the Department of Defense (DOD) has been responsible for allocating billions of dollars in capital funds among hundreds of hospitals and health care facilities around the world for many years.

Because it had no way to explain the merits of competing proposals or the true requirement for medical facility reinvestment, MHS had difficulty defending the program before the Office of Management and Budget and Congress, says Cynthia O. Smith, DOD spokeswoman.

"The Army, Navy and Air Force medical departments each had their own requirements and priorities, and it was very difficult to roll these three sets of priorities into one overall program for the DOD," Smith says.

MHS turned to software group Decision Lens, Arlington, Va., for help, Smith says. "We now have a logical, structured, transparent, auditable process to guide our decision making," she says.

The process involves developing evaluation criteria, which determines what's important to MHS and the importance of each criterion, Smith says.

Capital investment proposals are prepared using a standardized template and then evaluated by a review board. Each proposal is scored and the overall portfolio priorities are established.