A little doctoring needed

Gartner Inc. completed an independent review of the Composite Health Care System (CHCS) II technical architecture in September and found that the system faces myriad daunting tasks, including:

* 149,000 outpatient encounters per day.

* 31 million visits per year.

* 4,200 active, concurrent users on peak days.

"These challenges are beyond those seen in civilian [computer-based patient record] systems," according to the review.

Still, the report concluded there was "no architectural reason not to deploy" CHCS II.