Harris Corp. has won a Health and Human Services Department contract to build an open-source gateway to the Nationwide Health Information Network.
The gateway will initially connect health care providers at the Defense Department, Veterans Affairs Department, Indian Health Service and Social Security Administration. They will be able to exchange information about their patients and deliver electronic medical records (EMRs) to SSA for disability determinations.
The second phase of the project will move the core components of the gateway into the public domain. Providers can then download software and use it to connect to NHIN, according to a Harris news release. The company will also create a software development kit so providers can customize the gateway.
Sleighton Meyer, a spokesman for Harris Government Communications Systems, declined to reveal the value of the contract, although he said it was not particularly large in comparison with others held by the defense and communications technology company. Meyer said the contract was for a maximum of three years.
The gateway will reuse technology developed for the National Cancer Institute and the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange and now used by the Military Health System and Veterans Health Administration to exchange medical records, Harris officials said.
The Harris team includes Agilex Technologies, which has experience with the Defense Department’s EMR system, and ScenPro, which has worked with the National Cancer Institute.
Meyer said that although the dollar value of the contract is not remarkable, “strategically, it’s very important for our new Healthcare Solutions business.”
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
