Navy Drug Testing Program Expands Customer Base

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (NNS) -- The Navy Drug Testing Program announced Feb. 22, that it will expand its customer base by diversion of samples from its U.S. Army drug screening counterpart.

An agreement between the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory, Great Lakes (NDSL-GL) and Forensic Toxicology Drug Testing Laboratory aboard Fort Meade, Md., shifts processing of approximately 200,000 U.S. Army Reserve samples to the drug lab aboard Great Lakes annually.

Prior to the new customer base, NDSL-GL processed about 650,000 samples annually from Navy commands, Recruit Training Command, and Military Entrance Processing Stations, with less than 10 percent of the workload coming from Army commands. This augmentation results in a 31 percent increase in the workload at Great Lakes.

According to Cmdr. Eric Welsh, Navy Drug Screening program manager, the arrangement takes advantage of NDSL's excess capacity while ensuring the Army lab is able to continue processing an optimum number of samples per month.

"This move leverages the capacity at Great Lakes and ultimately provides greater value to both the lab at Great Lakes and the entire Department of Defense (DoD) drug testing enterprise by providing drug testing results that are critical to readiness in a timely and efficient manner," said Welsh.

This new workload will result in greater inter-service collaboration and joint partnership. NDSL is effectively helping the Army to reduce their sample processing time and to mitigate risks associated with processing samples beyond optimum capacity.

Currently, the three NDSLs, located in San Diego, Jacksonville, Fla., and Great Lakes, are comprised of more than 200 government service employees, numerous contract employees, and a dozen Medical Service Corps Officers (mostly Biochemists/Toxicologists) who collectively process more than 2.3 million samples per year.

This move will result in the Navy labs increasing their share of the DoD drug screening workload from 46 percent of the total to nearly 50 percent, and bolsters their stature in terms of value and jointness in accomplishing a mission that provides readiness through detection and deterrence.

The DoD drug testing enterprise is comprised of the three Navy labs, two Army labs, and one Air Force lab, and is a joint program with common instructions, oversight, and mission.

NDSL Jacksonville is part of NMCPHC and the entire Navy Medicine team, a global health care network of 63,000 Navy medical personnel around the world who provide high-quality health care to more than one million eligible beneficiaries. Navy Medicine personnel deploy with Sailors and Marines worldwide, providing critical mission support aboard ship, in the air, under the sea and on the battlefield.

For more information on the Navy Drug Testing Program, visit http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcphc/navy-drug-screening-labs/Pages/default.aspx.

For more news from Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center, visit www.navy.mil/local/nmcphc/.