Dr. Simon Pincus, M.D. Chief of the Connected Health Branch at the Defense Health Agency (DHA) https://health.mil delivered his thoughts on how Military Health Service (MHS) providers should keep an eye on lessons learned and the importance of five important digital health trends for 2021.
Lesson 1- There is the need to address virtual health especially for Telecritical Care. The spike in COVID-19 cases this winter is increasing requirements for intensive care. DHA is addressing this shortfall though the Joint Tele-Critical Network (JTCCN) which provides virtual healthcare and treatment at a distance.
The JTCCN has provided almost 1,200 days of coverage to more than 300 patients in 61 intensive care unit beds across 11 spoke sites from January to June 2020. DHA is exploring a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs https://www.va.gov to establish a single federal tele-critical network to provide care to 1,700 VA or 400 DHA ICU beds.
Lesson 2- Dr. Pincus explains how the traditional paradigm in the military has flipped. We have gone from assuming in-person care is the de facto standard to use to weigh different options for safe, high quality care. Now we need to think in terms of how and what patient care can be delivered virtually.
Lesson 3- The DHA transition and implementation of MHS GENESIS will encourage standardization, optimization, innovation and enable DHA to combine all military medical treatment facilities to ensure that care is provided in a unified, standardize way.
MHS GENESIS will continue its rollout through 2023. Significant MHS GENESIS improvements include providing secure messaging between patients and care teams to enable providers to dictate directly into the EHR.
Lesson 4- Interoperability and Integration of Technology is vital since the MHS has a worldwide, highly mobile population that moves between legacy systems. DHA has made progress toward interoperability among MHS GENESIS, AHLTA, VA and healthcare networks.
Integration of technology requires the integration of EHR and digital data from providers, patients, and from remote health monitoring. The use of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics may be able to help reduce redundancy and delay of care.
Lesson 5- Keeping patients at the center of care requires providers to also treat patients as partners and as savvy consumers. Providers also need to determine whether the patient is able to effectively use safe, evidence-based digital health tools.
Dr. Pincus summed up by saying, “This year has taught all MHS providers unforgettable lessons and will forever change how accomplish our mission ensure military readiness.”