Captain Andy Spencer

Captain Spencer is a native of Willingboro, New Jersey. He graduated from The College of New Jersey (née Trenton State College) with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing in 1987. He received his Masters in Nursing (Administration/Informatics) from Loyola University Chicago in 1999.

Captain Spencer began his Navy career in 1987, as a direct commission to the Nurse Corps. He was first stationed at Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, Virginia, in Medical/Surgical nursing and then Emergency Medicine, obtaining his specialty in Emergency Nursing. In 1991 he served with the Third Medical Battalion, Third Force Service Support Group in Okinawa, Japan. The last Director of the Combat Medical Training Unit, then Lieutenant Spencer initiated multiple comprehensive innovations for the sixty-bed deployable hospitals. He finished his tour as the Battalion Executive Officer—the first Nurse Corps Officer to be permanently so assigned.

In 1994, Captain Spencer transferred to Naval Hospital, Great Lakes, IL. His tour as Division Officer, Emergency Department saw the one of the first activations of the Ambulatory Data System by a Department of Defense Emergency Department. After obtaining his Master’s in Nursing, he transferred to the Naval Medical Information Management Center, Bethesda, MD as Deputy Director, Theater Medical Information Program-Maritime Functional Management Office. Here he led Navy and Marine Corps operational health service computer systems in both service and joint arenas.

Returning to the operating forces, he then served Captain US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, and Central Command as Deputy Surgeon and Force Health Protection Officer. He coordinated health services for two-thirds of the Marine Corps operational forces, including deployments in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

Returning to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, he performed healthcare informatics facilitation, with additional service to the Navy Medicine Chief Information Officer as the Theater Medical Systems Lead, coordinating enterprise Individual Medical Readiness and go-to-war information systems needs. He serves in various enterprise initiatives, including Nursing Productivity, competency and procedures standardization and enterprise IM/IT Strategic Planning.

Captain Spencer is currently assigned to TRICARE Region North, responsible for coordinating and overseeing Medical Management services in a 23-state, $2.1B annual purchased health care plan serving 2.9M beneficiaries. He leads two worldwide workgroups for the Director, Navy Nurse Corps, as well as supporting numerous medical treatment facility and enterprise information management efforts.

Captain Spencer’s personal decorations include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), Navy Commendation Medal, and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (two awards). He is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, the national honor society for nursing, American Medical Informatics Association, Health Information Management Systems Society, and a graduate of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College (distant education). He is on faculty at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing at Loyola University Chicago in graduate nursing management/ informatics and Navy Medicine Manpower, Personnel, Training and Education in executive skills.

Captain Spencer is married to the former Elizabeth Ann Goode, of Chesapeake, Virginia and has a daughter, Ariel, age seventeen.

Contact Information:

Phone: (703) 588-1832

Email:

Updated: 10 Jul 2009