David Grant USAF Medical Center

The David Grant USAF Medical Center (DGMC) at Travis Air Force Base in California, is the U.S. Air Force’s largest medical facility on the west coast. Serving military beneficiaries throughout eight western states, it is a milestone in the history of the Air Force Medical Service.

Named in honor of Major General David Norvell Walker Grant, USAF, MC (1891-1964), the first Surgeon General of the Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force, DGMC is one of the premier medical treatment facilities in the United States. DGMC currently serves over 83,000 TRICARE beneficiaries in the immediate San Francisco-Sacramento vicinity.

The building is divided into three separate patient zones: inpatient nursing units, diagnostic and treatment areas, and outpatient clinics. The hospital is designed around five large courtyards, which provide orientation for staff and patients, as well as natural lighting and views for patient rooms. With a “footprint” measuring greater than two football fields in width and almost four football fields in length, the horizontal nature of the medical center is evident. In addition, key structural members and foundations are sized for future vertical expansion.

The present state-of-the-art medical center was completed in 1988 at a cost of $193 million through a unique 'design-build' contract, which enabled the project to be completed ahead of schedule and $8 million below original budget projections. It encompasses over 808,475 net square feet with 3,662 rooms, 350 inpatient and 75 aero-medical staging flight beds and 52 dental treatment rooms in the adjacent Arthur J. Sachsel Dental Clinic. The facility has received five national awards for design and construction, is built to withstand major earthquakes, and can operate for up to a week using internal utility capabilities.

A typical day at David Grant involves 7 admissions, 50 inpatients, 2.5 births, 16 operations, 1,152 clinic visits, 2,500 laboratory procedures, and 3,042 outpatient prescriptions.

Home to nearly 2,000 men and women of the 60th Medical Group (60 MDG), DGMC offers a complete range of medical, surgical and dental services, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nuclear medicine and a world-class hyperbaric chamber, which is the second-largest in the United States. DGMC also supports the multi-service Armed Services Whole Blood Processing Laboratory-West (ASWBPL-W), one of only two in the United States, and an active Clinical Investigative Facility (CIF) program that is a model for other research centers in the country. Regional healthcare programs throughout Northern California include partnerships with UC Davis, Touro Osteopathic College (Marin Campus), University of the Pacific and Pacific Union College.

The medical center sponsors extensive postgraduate physician-officer training programs in surgery, family practice, diagnostic radiology, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and health services administration, as well as clinical technician training courses for enlisted personnel. The number of students in training at any given moment at DGMC typically exceeds 200 a year.

60 MDG alone has captured over 16 individual titles; in 2002, DGMC was nationally recognized with the Picker Institute's Benchmark Hospital Award for the United States’ Most Patient-Centered Hospital for the Emotional Support Dimension of Care.

In January, 2007, DGMC received the Department of Defense's 2006 Team Performance Patient Safety Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in creating a safer patient environment.

As medical advancements are made, DGMC continues to stay on the leading edge, opening the $1.5M Warfighter Photorefractive Keratectomy Center, one of only five in the Air Force Medical Service. The center includes an upgraded $50K laser eye treatment system, a state-of-the-art technology that will increase availability of service to active duty patients with high astigmatism, providing immeasurable impact on readiness and mission success.

DGMC has also increased women's health services by 50 percent and overall enrollee access to care by 33 percent. It has implemented the use of an automated health library, providing 24-hour accessibility to health information for staff and patients. In 2003, work began on four new labor and delivery suites in the OB ward, and within the Arthur J. Sachsel Dental Clinic, a $720K state-of-the-art centralized Dental Instrument Processing Center has improved processing time by approximately 50 percent.

Since it is a military medical center, 60 MDG personnel are “America’s First Choice” as the West Coast’s staging platform for expeditionary medical missions for both combat support and humanitarian missions. Capabilities include setting up deployable, expandable hospitals, mobile surgical, and critical care teams capable of managing air transport of critically injured personnel.

DGMC operates the 2nd largest readiness platform in the Air Force Medical Service and the largest in Air Mobility Command. With more than 1,000 hospital personnel assigned to mobility positions, DGMC continues to deploy in support of contingency operations such as Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and numerous humanitarian missions while ensuring world-class medical care and service to its customers at home.

See also: Air Force Medical Badge