Military health IT execs cite progress, caveats
ORLANDO, Fla. — A painfully slow contracting process is hampering progress on military health information technology, and the system warrants closer oversight by the Defense Department, said Dr. Ward Casscells, DOD’s assistant secretary of health affairs.
In remarks at the Health Information Management Systems Society's annual meeting here this week, Casscells said he wants the Government Accountability Office and DOD’s inspector general to keep a close watch on delays in the fulfillment of health IT contracts. “Once contracts are let, they are not always carefully managed,” he said.
Casscells also challenged health IT vendors to devote the same enthusiasm for producing systems that they give to winning contracts. “Don’t send us your varsity sales team, then your JV implementation team,” he said. “Our service members deserve better than that.”
The demands of managing mobility for users in 100 countries is another key challenge for military health IT planners, Casscells said.
Even so, he said, DOD has made progress. Radiological images, discharge summaries, and much pharmacy and drug allergy data are now digital, he said. The department’s ability to keep its soldiers healthy is also improving, which he attributed in part to IT and real-time information systems.
In the area of veterans’ health, the Veterans Affairs Department is experiencing a change of mind-set in how it deals with beneficiaries, said Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA’s deputy chief information officer for enterprise development. He described the change as a shift toward customer relationship management.
He said the approach goes beyond health care to involve the full spectrum of benefits, and it establishes a lifelong relationship with service members — from battlefield injuries through recovery and retirement.
IT is a big part of that as VA and DOD strive to share electronic information more easily, he said.
But Tibbits cautioned against the institutional tendency to take a single-system approach to integration, such as mandating one e-mail platform. Such a move “would set us back decades,” he said. Instead, it is crucial to set standards that would allow data to flow through many different systems.
“Common development is about saving costs,” Tibbits said. “It has nothing to do with executing the mission. Data sharing is all about executing the mission.”
“Let’s not let the great get in the way of the good,” he said.
Tibbits said military health IT planners are working on the second phase of a study to evaluate alternatives for a joint VA/DOD inpatient electronic health record. The study should be completed in six months, he said.
About the Author
Paul McCloskey is editor-in-chief of Government Health IT magazine.