The United States Armed Forces spent some significant money with three big vendors this October, adding to and improving its healthcare IT capabilities.
With an eye toward improving its medical infrastructure, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to General Dynamics Information Technology with a total potential value of $409 million over four years if all options are exercised.
The firm will support the U.S. Army Medical Department's healthcare construction projects, including the modernization of the Army's current medical facilities and the transition to newly constructed facilities – providing troop-ready project support for planning, outfitting and transitioning the staff and medical facilities associated with U.S. Army Medical Department healthcare construction projects.
"Our experience relocating, installing and upgrading large IT networks … will enable us to efficiently transition, modernize and outfit other Army medical facilities without interference to the quality patient care for our nation's warriors and their families," said Zannie Smith, vice president of Army Solutions Division for General Dynamics Information Technology.
General Dynamics has a diverse record in health IT operations and maintenance, health systems and patient safety program management, informatics, healthcare data management analytics and medical scientific research support for a number of organizations including the U.S. Department of Defense.
"America's warriors and Military Health System beneficiaries should receive first-rate medical treatment and recover in world-class facilities," said Richard Mylod, program manager in General Dynamics Information Technology's Health Services group. "To support this mission, we will deliver innovative solutions to manage each project for the Corps of Engineers, ensuring work is completed on time and within budget."
Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard has enlisted the help of Epic Systems, bestowing it with a $14 million contract to set up an electronic health record system that will have modules for integrated medical, dental, lab, pharmacy and radiology, as well as a patient portal. (Epic will also provide training, testing, help desk services and back-up operations.)
The new system will also enable the Coast Guard to exchange data using the nationwide health information network (NHIN).
T
he Coast Guard operates 43 ambulatory clinics across six time zones, in addition to remote sickbays on land and afloat. All land based clinics and sickbays are connected to the Coast Guard Digital Network (CGDN) by which they access the Medical Information Systems (MIS) using Citrix Client architecture. Sickbays afloat have intermittent or no connectivity to the CGDN and therefore rely on stand-alone or store-and-forward systems.
The Epic EHR will replace a version of a Defense Department system that includes the Composite Health Care System (CHCS), Provider Graphic User Interface (PGUI), and Armed Forces Healthcare Longitudinal Application (AHLTA).
Currently, the Coast Guard's EHR system doesn't have basic functionality such as clinical decision support, population health reporting and patient scheduling. It also doesn't meet government requirements for interoperable electronic medical records.
The EHR is also not consistent with a Department of Homeland Security directive to "develop strategies to reduce costs, streamline processes, eliminate duplication and improve transparency and customer service,” officials said.
More generally, say Coast Guard brass, "the current environment is inefficient, experiences poor user satisfaction, and has no wireless user interfaces."
In other military news, it was reported in October that Siemens Medical Solutions USA has been given a $6 million contract from the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support to continue providing technology for the "acquisition, transmission, display and management of diagnostic imaging studies" for the branches of the armed forces.
The planned digital imaging network-picture archiving and communications system (DIN-PACS) is an open system network of digital devices that aims "to create a 'virtual' radiology department," allowing access to images by multiple users and "create opportunities to dynamically shift workload at any time and to any location where clinical expertise is available."
