Capt. Wayne Lapetoda, left, U.S. Naval Dental Center Far East’s commanding officer, presents the dental center command flag to Capt. Charles Taylor, U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka’s commanding officer, during the disestablishment ceremony of the dental command Thursday. (Jim Oâ™Donnell / S&S)
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The Navy, in an effort to increase efficiency, disestablished its seventh dental command at a ceremony Thursday at Yokosuka’s Benny Decker Theater. Five more dental commands throughout the Navy will be disestablished by mid-February, according to a Navy official.
U.S. Naval Dental Center Far East officially was disestablished after more than 47 years of service in Japan when the dental clinic’s final commanding officer, Capt. Wayne Lapetoda, presented the dental command flag to Capt. Charles Taylor, Yokosuka Naval Hospital’s commanding officer.
The change should have minimal effect on Yokosuka dental patients, officials said.
The dental command was integrated into Yokosuka Naval Hospital on Thursday as part of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine’s answer to a challenge from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark, said Rear Adm. Dennis Woofter, deputy director for Naval Medicine, who officiated at the ceremony.
“Adm. Clark, when he assumed his office nearly five years ago, challenged all of his commanders … to reduce their administrative and command-and-control infrastructure to be more efficient … with the objective to reduce labor costs,” Woofter said.
“This integration initiative is Navy Medicine’s response to that challenge. There is a lot of overhead that goes with maintaining separate commands, and the inherent support staff that goes with each of those. By merging them we ought to be able to enjoy some economies of scale and reduce redundant and duplicate processes.”
Woofter said he expected most patients would notice no difference to their service or care after the integration, saying changes mostly affect administrative processes.
When the integration plan was under consideration, officials found almost 100 administrative processes in parallel between medical and dental commands, Woofter said.
“By merging,” he said, “we should be able to achieve very significant savings in manpower and efficiencies.”
Short of physical changes such as the locations for picking up records or making appointments, most people won’t be affected by the integration, he said.
He does, however, expect integration to affect Naval Medicine’s personnel numbers.
“If we do it right, and we actually achieve these efficiencies that are potentially there, it should result in a demand for a smaller labor force,” he said. Woofter expects some reductions in civilian, contractor and military numbers but said he could not immediately predict where the cuts would be made.
The integration of Navy dental commands should be invisible as well for most personnel just getting into Naval Medicine — but it may affect them later on in their careers.
“The folks who stay with the system longer and move into the administrative side,” will be expected to have an “understanding of a full spectrum of health care not just medical care or dental care,” Woofter said.
Several sailors at Thursday’s ceremony said they had come to agree that the integration was a good idea, though most said they were a little skeptical at first.
“I feel it’s a good idea,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessamine Delgado, a dental technician from Atsugi Naval Air Facility. “I just think it’s going to take a few steps to get where everyone will feel comfortable.”
Petty Officer 3rd Class Jevon Jones said he believes the integration will open up more career possibilities.
“I think it is a good opportunity for DTs (dental technicians) to get acclimated with the hospital. It’s good we are going to become one big command,” said the dental technician from Yokosuka.
