CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 18, 2026 – Advocate Health's strong partnerships with the military and longstanding support for its veteran teammates benefit the health system, the military and ultimately patients.
A new white paper, entitled “Bedside to Battlefield: Advocate Health’s National Strategy for Serving Country and Community,” details the health system’s existing work with veterans and the military and profiles some of the doctors, nurses and teammates who use their skills to care for patients every day. This includes embedding active U.S. Army medical personnel alongside Advocate Health clinicians in a North Carolina trauma center, battlefield innovations adapted to advance care and ways the health system creates opportunities for veterans to apply their unique skills and perspectives after discharge from the armed forces.
Now, the health system has opened a new enterprise-level office to coordinate these efforts across Advocate Health’s six-state footprint.
“From my experience of growing up on military bases, I witnessed firsthand the discipline, unity and shared purpose that define our armed forces,” said Eugene A. Woods, CEO of Advocate Health, wrote in the report’s foreword. “ Those experiences shaped me deeply. They instilled a lifelong respect for the sacrifices our service members make — and has fueled my personal commitment to ensuring they receive the very best care, both in uniform and as veterans.”
Formal partnerships between the military and Advocate Health have helped keep military surgeons, medics, nurses and more ready in times of peace so that their skills will be sharp in times of war. Active-duty military clinicians work shoulder-to-shoulder with civilian teams in hospitals and clinics — gaining real-world experience while delivering exceptional care to local communities. Patients benefit from the expertise of highly trained military professionals who, as a result, stay mission-ready, even during times of peace. Hospital teammates learn new ideas and techniques from their military counterparts.
A longtime collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs has provided education and research opportunities to Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Advocate Health’s academic core, with the VA also benefitting from the medical expertise of the health system’s clinicians who also deliver care at the VA.
Advocate Health employs more than 2,800 veterans across its six-state footprint, offering meaningful careers as doctors and nurses, as well as researchers, recruiters and more.
Given the benefits of its ability to scale, Advocate Health is in a unique position to partner with the U.S. military to boost readiness, share its expertise with patients and advance military medicine research.
As it has done to improve overall care quality and its commitment to rural communities, the nonprofit health system will continue to use its depth of expertise, diversity of programs across the care continuum, wide geographic footprint and academic core to further its current, deep commitments to working with the military and veterans.
The new Office of Operational Medicine will coordinate it all. It will be headed up by Dr. David Callaway, global health security officer at Advocate Health, professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a former United States Navy combat veteran.
“At the end of the day, our job at Advocate Health is to provide the best care we can for our patients,” said Callaway. “Partnering with the military empowers this mission at home and abroad and helps our armed forces in the process.”
Find the full report at AdvocateHealth.org/VeteranCare.
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