The Government Accountability Office (GAO) https://www.gao.gov released their report Information Technology: Key Attributes of Essential Federal Mission-Critical Acquisitions dated September 2020.
GAO identified EHR modernization efforts critical to a number of agencies which included the Defense Health Agency https://health.mil and the Veterans Administration (VA) https://www.va.gov.
The agencies are expected to spend on selected acquisitions depending on their scope and complexity, as well spend on transformations and modernizations that are envisioned once the acquisitions are fully deployed. For example, the Department of Defense plans to spend $10.21 billion over 21 years on their healthcare modernization initiative.
The Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) program established to produce a modernized EHR system is called the Military Health System (MHS) GENESIS. DOD anticipates a significant return on investment and $87 million in cost savings with DHMSM.
The new system is intended to provide an electronic integrated capability for 54 hospitals, 377 medical clinics, and 270 dental clinics to serve 9.5 million DOD beneficiaries worldwide and is expected to be implemented by the end of the second quarter of FY 2024.
It is anticipated that the modernized EHR will include increased capacity, reduction in duplicate medical tests and turnaround time on results, improved patient safety and clinical effectiveness, improved medication reconciliation and reduced adverse drug reactions, improved medical records and document storage, and improved readiness.
In 2017, the VA announced their decision to replace their legacy EHR system called the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture with the same commercial off-the-shelf EHR software solution to be deployed by DOD (MHS GENESIS).
For more than a decade, the VA and DOD have not had EHR systems that permit the electronic exchange of patient health information as military service members transition from DOD to VA healthcare systems.
The VA expects the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) delivery to be based on about 50 deployments to an estimated 170 medical centers with the first go-live planned for October 2020.
Go to https://gao.gov/products/GAO-2–249SP for the report. For more information, email Carol C. Harris at harriscc@gao.gov