Trust in U.S. Military Healthcare

The broader health­care industry is moving to put trust in the center of their relationships with patients. The military healthcare system can be included in that process. To explore the issue of trust within an existing military health framework the Joint Outpatient Experience Survey (JOES) survey con­tains questions that can be brought together to develop a composite score that would provide an indication about respondents’ level of trust in their providers, and to a degree, their facilities.

Download this paper which offers a detailed review of the literature in order to explore the application of trust in the healthcare industry, specifically in the Defense Health Agency (U.S.). In this paper we define trust in the healthcare con­text, discuss ways that institutions can enhance trust among their users, ways that the broader healthcare community seeks to address trust and finally the way that the Department of Veterans Affairs uses trust in their communications and engagement with their patients. We conclude with a suggested approach that the data from JOES and JOES-C can be used to provide a trust indicator.