Is a new IT system the solution to issues with military medical records?

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 10:46:00 -0400

New IT Contract coming for military medical records

The Pentagon is pursuing a new contract to manage medical records electronically.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/27/health-it-firms-vie-for-huge-defense-contract.html

How many of us have records in more than one place that don't correlate? Is a better IT system the solution? Does anyone still prefer paper records?

Health IT firms vie for huge Defense contract

The department is expected to grant a 10-year health-care IT pact, at up to $10 billion, to overhaul its electronic health system records.

Response by SCPO David Lockwood made Jul 28 at 2015 11:01 AM

SCPO David Lockwood — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:01:55 -0400

Does this include the Retired folks and their families? I didn't see anything mentioning them. Thanks,

Response by SSG John Erny made Jul 28 at 2015 11:15 AM

SSG John Erny — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:15:31 -0400

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member Sir,
Having worked with medical records on a Micro scale as an IT professional I know that a central database can be a great tool that keeps records in line and secure. In my case the records are on their own subnet with only medical staff and admins having access to them and no access at all to the internet.

When one moves to the Macro scale such as the military NPPI and HIPA data are a target of hackers who would do harm to service members. Securing service members medical data is of great concern to us all. I my self have gotten letters from the VA stating that my personal information may have been stolen in a data breach. I am not against a central data store for our medical records but I think that IT security needs to be looked at very carefully from both external and internal threats. I would go so fare as to put a cash prize out to challenge hackers to break in or expose any flaws.

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 28 at 2015 2:54 PM

CW5 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:54:08 -0400

The idea that building up a database and developing a front end costs $2 billion is ridiculous.
Just buy Microsoft CRM or any other front end and develop custom views for medical purposes and a place to store and view paper documents. You just need to implement a VPN using CAC as well as logon credentials to protect database access and apply permission sets to the users. You can also divorce the unclassified networks altogether and implement this on a separate network protected by encryptors.
The greatest challenge is data migration from old systems to this one and how any information would be exported to the VA.
What is making this expensive is that the vendors see who the customer is. I still can't believe what happened with the Obamacare website with the amount of money that was spent on it.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 30 at 2015 9:30 AM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 09:30:41 -0400

The contractor Cerner was selected:

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/29/leidos-team-wins-huge-us-military-healthcare-records-contract.html

I think this is on the right track, but we'll see how it all goes.

I am very glad to see that interoperability and networking across companies was an issue that was addressed to avoid putting us in an obsolescence issue or locked in with one vendor for life.

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