Defense Electronic Health Records Program Seeks Help Organizing Influx of Data
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By
Aaron Boyd
The Defense Health Agency wants to know if a vendor can help match all the new data it’s collecting with the old.
The Defense Health Agency is in the midst of rolling out a massive electronic health records initiative and is collecting a lot of data on patients, doctors and the health care process. Now, it needs a vendor to help it manage all that data.
The agency issued a call to its industry partnership network for information on companies with the ability to “consolidate its enterprise data storage systems, to improve access to data from these systems to [Military Health System] stakeholders and to migrate data as necessary to support a new electronic health record system,” according to the notice on FedBizOpps.
As the new systems associated with the MHS Genesis program are implemented, the vendor would be called on to map the new processes and data elements to ensure there is a one-to-one data correlation between the new systems and the old.
“The anticipated increase in clinical data from the new EHR and the need to integrate decades of historical health and business system data will require a robust enterprise reference and metadata management system,” the notice states, adding that these systems will also need to integrate with physicians’ systems.
The amount of data will only continue to grow as the MHS Genesis network expands beyond the Defense Department. The Coast Guard recently announced plans to join the Genesis network and Veterans Affairs Department is currently considering a shift to Cerner, the vendor managing Defense Health’s program.
The notice specifies that the vendor’s system must be able to integrate with Cerner’s to work properly.
Along with the ability to meet the growing demand and influx of data, the potential solution must also be able to automatically update its taxonomy and mapping to accommodate new national standards and data requirements.
Submissions are due by May 4. In June, Defense officials might organize face-to-face discussions with specific contractors, as well, depending on the responses to this notice.