Under Base Realignment and Closure, the specialty capabilities of Walter Reed Army Medical Center will move to Bethesda or DeWitt Army Community Hospital at Fort Belvoir.

Schoomaker outlined the future for what will be known as the National Capital Region Medical Health System. He also explained the five missions set to guide the armed forces medical field.

Those five missions are: health services, combat casualty care, military medical readiness, health education, and biomedical and clinical research.

Another priority is recruiting and retaining Walter Reed employees to continue to provide state-of-the-art medical care, research and administrative support during the Base Realignment and Closure process.

‘‘We are not closing Walter Reed, we are moving it,” he told the audience. ‘‘It’s not about the buildings or the pictures on the wall, it’s about you.”

He said not every civilian will be going to Bethesda or DeWitt, so the main focus over the next three or four years is to think of innovative ways to retain quality civilians through bonuses and incentives.

One of the recommendations outlined in the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warrior is Walter Reed Army Medical Center must have the authority and responsibility to recruit and retain first-rate professionals to ‘‘continue its historic role as a vital tertiary care and research center until the day it actually ceases operation.”

The report noted about one in five injured service members go directly to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and there are more than 700 outpatients on campus.

After Base Realignment and Closure, Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center will provide about 80 percent of the combat casualty care.

National Capital Region Medical Health System will maintain readiness to ensure the armed forces are ‘‘deploying a medically ready force and also deploying a ready medical force.”

He emphasized the importance of health education and research.

‘‘If we aren’t part of the future of how we do medicine — this kind of medicine, this demanding kind of medicine — we will not sustain the gains we’ve survived in this war. We will continue to have a deliberate, focused attempt to improve their survival.”

Schoomaker answered questions and said Base Realignment and Closure is meant to minimize the overhead of running Defense Department organizations and help armed services medicine run even more efficiently. He said the joint medical system leverages resources from the three services.

‘‘Will we turn back the clock on Base Realignment and Closure? No, we won’t and we shouldn’t,” he told the audience. ‘‘If anything [Base Realignment and Closure] is going to be accelerated. We’ll do what we can to accelerate the process and we have the funding to do so.”

The commanding general said he sees this move as an opportunity to build ‘‘the hospital of the future” and encouraged staff members to continue to push the envelope and be innovators in the field. He said four percent of amputees remained on active duty in 1998, but today the number is at 20 percent.

The Military Advanced Training Center, set for a Sept. 13 grand-opening at Walter Reed, will be moved to Bethesda and every piece of equipment in the Military Advanced Training Center is portable. The Military Advanced Training Center is a multi-functional and multi-disciplinary center aimed at retraining injured Soldiers to become ‘‘tactical athletes.”

Also, within the last six months, the military has added a center to treat traumatic brain injury, one of the leading injuries in the Global War on Terror, to the plans for Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center. The center is embedded to help accelerate the treatment of traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

To ensure the integration process is completed by September 2011, the military will name a new Joint Task Force National Capital Region. The yet unnamed three-star commander, Schoomaker explained, will streamline the process and make sure every service’s requirements and missions are met.

As for Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Schoomaker said there will be no degradation of services.

‘‘We will change the light bulbs, paint the walls and keep training.”

(Ellis is a staff writer for the Walter Reed Army Medical Center command information newspaper, The Stripe)