Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Departs from Military Health System: “I am Enormously Proud of What We Have Accomplished Together”

In his last interview before retiring on Oct. 31, 2024, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Lester Martínez-López emphasized the need for a robust Military Health System that prioritizes service members and their families.

He said that serving in this role “has been the privilege of my life,” and the decision to retire was not an easy one.

“I am enormously proud of what we have accomplished together and confident that you all are more than ready to fully implement the vision we’ve laid out to stabilize, sustain, and strengthen the MHS,” he said.

Serving ‘Those That Serve’

His retirement comes more than a year and a half after taking the oath of office on March 21, 2023. After accepting the position, he said the opportunity “was a calling” and everything he had done in his life had led to this point.

Following his 27-year military career, retiring as a U.S. Army major general, he and his wife, Lydia, relocated to Tampa Bay, Florida, but opportunity soon came knocking. For the next thirteen years, he worked a variety of positions in health care, mainly serving Hispanic Americans.

He retired, but not for long. In 2020, U.S. President Joe Biden nominated him for assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Martínez decided to come back to the MHS because he wanted to be part of the mission to enhance warfighter readiness.

“I was getting concerned, and as a beneficiary of the system, I was not too pleased,” said Martínez. “When I came in, I just wanted to make sure that—for readiness—we structured the direct health care system.”

He noted one of the most important parts of the job is “putting service members and their families first. We are here to serve those that serve.”

Yet one of the biggest challenges is changing the mindset of those that do serve, Martínez noted. There were obstacles that he felt that he and his team had to overcome to make changes needed in the system.

“The hardest obstacle is that for the last 10 years, the culture of the DOD [and] the MHS, had been to shrink and shift everything to the outside world,” he said. “When you change your vectors, almost 180 degrees, the hardest thing is to convince people that it’s the right thing to do.”

He said to help encourage change, you must “first acknowledge why you want to do that, acknowledge the difficulty we are experiencing today, and acknowledge that to alleviate those shortcomings, we need to change course.”

“I feel very good that we have been sustaining that message. And people get it, because people in the field understand that. They see how their military hospitals and clinics are short-handed, and they see the lack of patients coming in.”

He indicated his goal of improving the MHS was to emphasize a shift from outsourcing to a requirements-based organizations that attracts civilian personnel and returning military personnel and veterans back into the system.

Two Key Achievements During His Tenure

Martínez acknowledged the signing of a memo by the deputy secretary of defense directing the stabilization of the MHS as a key highlight of his tenure.

“As a team, we really achieved an incredible accomplishment. I am so grateful to the deputy secretary for taking the lead on this one and helping us out with something that is really going to make a big difference.”

The directive, a groundbreaking achievement, signed on Dec. 6, 2023, requires that the MHS increase its medical forces to reattract patients and beneficiaries, improve access to care in military hospitals and clinics, and increase opportunities to sustain military clinical readiness for medical forces. Essentially, it provides workforce stability, which in turn improves access to care and more clinical capabilities in military hospitals and clinics.

Aligned with stabilization directive, the MHS Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2024-2029 was created, the first one in several years.

He also considers the approval for the use of freeze dried plasma by the Food and Drug Administration as a great achievement that will benefit the warfighter, and said that “you have to celebrate the small victories.”

Dried plasma serves as an adjunct to whole blood at the point of need, especially in austere locations where no other blood product is available, and increases chances of survival.

‘It Takes a Village’ to Collaborate

He described the importance of inter-agency collaboration with entities like the FDA, Defense Health Agency, Veterans Health Administration, foreign partners, the Military Departments, and many more.

Martinez mentioned that interagency collaboration is vital especially in situations like the flu pandemic and COVID-19 preparedness.

“If we have a discovery in the research platform, those discoveries are going to affect people at large,” said Martinez. “If the inter-agency has a discovery … it has an effect on us, and what we need to do is make sure we leverage both sides.”

“It takes a village to make this work.”

He considers the creation of the DHA as a major step towards the right direction in stabilizing and creating a quality health care system within the MHS.

Future Vision for MHS

Addressing the future of the MHS, he said, “I think it’s not about us. This is not a fight. This is not an endeavor about us. It’s about the people we serve. And if you use that as a guiding principle, then that’s your standard [and] that’s what you want to achieve. You want to achieve the best care for those people that you serve.”

He said that every decision that is made, and every problem addressed, the first question asked must be, “how can we best serve those we are serving?”

One of the lessons that he said he learned at his time in the DOD is that “everything is … very complex. It’s a very complex, large organization, and everything is intertwined.”

He said he hopes that one long-term impact of his tenure has been creating “better care for the service members and their families and have an MHS where we feel proud that the quality and service are excellent, and is a place where people want to come back.”

When asked about legacy, he commented: “It’s not my legacy; it’s our legacy,” he said. “I would like the legacy of the team, that I’ve been working so hard with, to be a medical health system that is robust, and healthy. I want it to be a system where we can be ready to take on anything that our service members need.”

Martínez thanked the “angels that have helped him along the way. They don’t have wings, but they’re people that really make a difference.”

Once settled back in Tampa, he plans on enjoying time with his wife, Lydia, his children and grandchildren, and traveling with Lydia.

Even though he will be retired, for the third time, he believes he will still be engaged in service—his calling in life.

Advice for Incoming Leadership

When asked what advice he would give to incoming leadership, he said “don’t lose focus … we have a road map. The road is rough., a lot of work to be done … if you keep focused on why you’re doing it, then you and the team will succeed.”

He encourages his successor to get out of the office and “visit with the rank and file. Acknowledge what they’re seeing, carry a message that says, ‘yes, we see you, and we’re doing something about it.’”