NASA Procedures and Guidelines
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NPR 7120.11 Eff. Date: November 01, 2011 Cancellation Date: August 03, 2021	NASA Health and Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) Implementation
| TOC | Preface | Chapter1 | Chapter2 | Chapter3 | Chapter4 | AppendixA | AppendixB | AppendixC | AppendixD | AppendixE | ALL |

Chapter 3. Health and Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) Implementation

3.1 Chief Medical Officer

3.1.1 At NASA Centers with civil service physicians, the CHMO appoints, with the concurrence of the Center Director, a CMO who shall exercise HMTA for that Center. The CMO is independently funded from programs and projects at the Center. There is no individual delegated HMTA at Centers without a CMO. At those Centers, the Center Director, with concurrence of the CHMO, shall develop an HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan to assure HMTA is appropriately and effectively implemented at the Center.

3.1.2 The roles and responsibilities of the CMO are described in paragraph 2.5 of this NPR.

3.1.2.1 For human space flight, the CHMO has solely delegated HMTA to the CMO at JSC. All potential human space flight health, medical, and human performance issues identified at other Centers shall be coordinated with JSC, as described in Appendix D.

3.1.2.2 The JSC CMO shall assign an HMTA interface POC for human space flight issues arising at the other Centers. The JSC CMO (through the assigned POC) shall be responsible to:

a. Ensure that qualified human system discipline expertise is engaged to support programs and projects for issues arising at other Centers (see Appendix D) and that appropriate delegations of authority are established to efficiently support program and project day-to-day operations until the issue is resolved.

b. Provide a path to escalate technical concerns outside of the program/project chain of command, if warranted.

c. Integrate all disciplines within the HMTA to bring solutions to the program/project.

d. Ensure that proposed tailoring of standards/requirements by programs and projects are technically acceptable, and evaluate and disposition requests for waivers.

e. Ensure coordination of all HMTA human space flight issues at a Center with the Center CMO, when one exists.

3.2 HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan

3.2.1 The CMO (where assigned), in collaboration with the CHMO and Center Director, shall develop an HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan, based on the Letter of Agreement between the OCHMO, the OCE, and the OSMA, "Collaboration for Health and Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) Implementation," signed June 14, 2010. Where no CMO is assigned, the Center Director, in collaboration with the CHMO, is responsible for developing the plan. The plan shall describe the effective implementation of HMTA at each Center with required organizational and funding separation from programs and projects.

3.2.1.1 The HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan shall be developed according to the processes described in Appendix D, including incorporation of the HMTA Process Flow Chart (Figure D-3), to ensure consistent implementation of HMTA throughout the Agency and shall:

a. Describe the flow-down and reporting processes, including role and responsibilities unique to each Center's resources.

b. Describe the HMTA awareness roles and responsibilities, interfaces, and communication flow paths for engineering and SMA personnel to identify potential issues to the appropriate level of HMTA (Figures D-1 and D-2).

3.2.2 For Centers with an assigned CMO, the HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan shall describe the specific level of delegation of HMTA to the CMO and the interfaces with the program/project engineering and SMA TA as the HMTA awareness and communication links.

3.2.3 The HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan can be incorporated into the Center's engineering and/or SMA Technical Authority Implementation Plan with the concurrence of the CMO (where assigned) and the CHMO.

3.2.4 The HMTA Implementation/Awareness Plan shall include concurrence from the CHMO, Center Director, CMO (where assigned), and the Center engineering and SMA TAs.

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