The Academic Programs Directorate (APD) at Naval Medical Leader and Professional Development Command (NMLPDC), Bethesda, in coordination with Defense Health Agency (DHA), and Naval Medical Forces Support Command (NMFSC), completed a business re-engineering project focused on optimizing the course registration process for students. The project resulted in one SharePoint-based registration portal titled the Academic Course Registration (ACR).

Students from across the globe who are registering for courses offered at NMLPDC can now access the new ACR portal through the NMLPDC homepage. Students are able to route requests electronically through their local leadership to Course Academic Staff, using SharePoint workflow logic within the portal. Students can also track pending and approved course requests through a dashboard, and should circumstances change, withdraw from a course up to a week prior to course commencement. The only requirement is accessing the protected link through a common access card enabled Department of Defense computer.

Lieutenant Timothy Rutherford, Medical Service Corps, United States Navy, serving as the Patient Administration Course Director at NMLPDC, discussed the collaborative efforts of the team, “the process of creating the portal really took off with staff innovation and a focus on process improvement. The partnerships across NMLPDC, DHA, and NMFSC is what enabled our team to consolidate multiple course pages into a single location to provide our warfighter with a one stop shop for course information and registration.”

First Class Petty Officer Sinthia Colocho, serving as APD Leading Petty Officer at NMLPDC, described the ACR firsthand, “more than 297 applications have been processed through the system since we went live on October 1st. It is a game changer when it comes to reducing administrative hours and providing a better customer experience for the servicemember.”

The Academic Program Directorate at NMLPDC, Bethesda, annually facilitates more than 50 Bureau of Medicine and Surgery courses through 150,000 hours of education for 2,700 Federal uniformed services, civilian, and allied foreign military members. For more information on how to use the ACR, please visit the ACR portal at https://olb.navy.awesp.health.mil/sites/nmfsc/apps/ACR/SitePages/courseInfo.aspx and download the student go-by on the welcome tab.