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Cmdr. Marquez F. Campbell

M.A.S. (spring '04)

When Cmdr. Marquez F. Campbell joined Naval Medical Center San Diego in 2003, the war in Iraq had just kicked off. Marquez, who was in charge of contingency operations at the time, helped coordinate medical support for the U.S. Marine Corps deployed abroad. The job, he said, gave him a unique perspective on the Navy’s healthcare contribution to the troops in and around Iraq.

Today, as assistant director for administration for the Naval Medical Center, Marquez is at the center of changes in the way the U.S. military delivers healthcare to its customers. The military is continuously striving to improve healthcare services for the sailor, airman, soldier and Marine and their families, as well as for reservists and retired military personnel. To better prepare himself and contribute to naval healthcare efficiencies, Marquez enrolled in UCSD Extension’s Healthcare Executive Leadership program. In 2004, he graduated from UCSD’s Leadership of Healthcare Organizations Master’s degree program. “It was an opportunity to sharpen my healthcare management skills by becoming current on healthcare issues facing the industry and to meet contemporaries from the greater San Diego area, to see what skills they applied to managed issues such as nursing shortages, and delivering quality healthcare services in a high cost, resource constrained environment,” said Campbell, who began his 22-year Navy career as a hospital corpsman. “We also want to negotiate with our health insurance providers from a more informed perspective. We operate with tax payer funds so we are always evaluating efficiencies.”

In the days of competing resources, Marquez must also be able to validate big-ticket costs for things like facility maintenance contracts – a topic covered in one of his classes. “We have to be able to justify to our comptroller why we prioritized the replacement of a facility item or biomedical technician training over diagnostic equipment,” said Marquez, who has a healthcare management degree from Southern Illinois University. “I must communicate in terms that the decision makers can realize the cost avoidance of replacement costs due to major equipment failure and correspond that our efforts are ensuring a patient a safe environment rather than detracting from patient care.”

Before joining Naval Medical Center, Marquez worked as an assistant program manager on a medical clinical information system at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). There he developed an electronic medical record for Navy operational forces. He used the Systems Development model as his Individual Student Paper for the Extension master’s program. The Navy adopted Campbell’s recommendations from his paper, including clearly defining the clinical and administrative business processes to better.

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