Naval Medical Forces Pacific champions innovation and readiness in improvement project competition

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Naval Medical Forces Pacific spotlighted data-driven innovations aimed at strengthening medical readiness across the Pacific with the results of its 2026 Continuous Process Improvement Project Competition, announced in June. The effort drew a record 53 submissions, which were evaluated for alignment with strategic goals, clarity of the problem, multidisciplinary teamwork, data relevance and overall impact.

“Our ‘Get Real, Get Better’ approach is delivering real results this year,” said Christian Crifasi, director of improvement sciences for NMFP. “Our teams are using data-driven insights to break down barriers to readiness, proving that a commitment to continuous improvement directly strengthens our ability to support the warfighter whenever and wherever they need us.”

“The CPI competition is an opportunity for commands to highlight teams that have taken the ‘Get Real, Get Better’ mindset seriously,” Capt. Christopher Phillips, chief medical officer for NMFP, said. “These projects not only improve care and efficiency where they are implemented but can be shared across the enterprise.”

Awards spanned four problem-solving methodologies:

– Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control: Lt. Cmdr. Skylar Williams of Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Okinawa took first place for reducing waste in optical fabrication. Between December 2023 and June 2024, the optometry clinic had hundreds of pairs of glasses sit undelivered, reducing vision readiness for active-duty members and wasting tens of thousands of dollars monthly. By shipping glasses directly to a patient’s workplace post office box, the clinic cut delivery failures by about 93 percent. Runner-up Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Kayley Holler of Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Unit Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego implemented a standardized qualification standard for medical staff, reducing vaccination and medication errors for Marine recruits to near zero.

– Rapid Improvement Event: Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Darren Calica from NMRTC Okinawa won for streamlining immunization clinic processes. Inventory checks and order fulfillments that once took several hours—and risked a multi-million-dollar vaccine supply while exposing staff to cold temperatures—were reduced to a 28-minute inventory with about a 99 percent accuracy rate, and staff cold exposure dropped to just a few minutes. Runner-up Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Alejandro Sapiens of Navy Expeditionary Medicine Warfighter Development Command reorganized a warehouse, shrinking expired stock from hundreds of items to a handful and cutting supply retrieval time to under a minute per item.

– Other Process Improvement: Lt. Xiomara Martinez of NMRTC San Diego won for optimizing access to the Periodic Health Assessment during a surge in operational demand, standardizing processes that boosted readiness performance from 20 percent to 95 percent between October and December 2025. Runner-up Lt. Viktoriya Baraya, also of NMRTC San Diego, developed a skills fair template that trained hundreds of personnel across geographically separated branch clinics, addressing patient safety gaps.

– Define-Measure-Analyze-Design-Verify: Cmdr. Andrew Veileux from NMFP Headquarters won for creating a unified tool to track required training, eliminating manual spreadsheet errors and saving significant labor hours. Runner-up Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Morgan Sheffield established standard operating procedures for dental in-processing at NMRTU MCRD San Diego, improving clinical efficiency for incoming recruits.

NMFP provides oversight for 10 Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Commands on the West Coast and Pacific Rim that train, man and equip medical forces, and oversees eight research laboratories that support warfighter health and readiness. The organization also manages the Naval Expeditionary Medicine Warfighter Development Center, which prepares medical teams for expeditionary and operational environments.