DoD inspector asks whether EHR decline of agency will be met

The Defense Department’s policies to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system by the month of December may not be realistic, in according to a new audit from the DoD Office of the Inspector General.

In July 2015, the Pentagon granted a $4.3 billion contract award to a Leidos-Cerner team to modernize DoD’s EHR system. Called the Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM), the integrated system is designed to replace legacy military health systems and promote greater efficiencies by leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf Cerner Millennium solution.

An initial deployment is slated for December, when the EHR will be rolled out to DoD locations in the Pacific Northwest. But the OIG is concerned that the DHMSM program schedule might not meet initial operational capability needs by the end of this year.

“While the DHMSM program office has recognized the threats and mitigation strategies, it is still at risk for obtaining an EHR system by the December 2016 initial operational capability date due to the risks and potential delays involved in developing and testing the interfaces required to interact with legacy systems, ensuring the system is secure against cyber attacks, and ensuring the fielded system works correctly and that users are properly trained,” concluded the OIG report, which was released on Tuesday.

However, speaking that similar day at the ONC Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, Stacy Cummings, program executive officer for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems program, gave no indication that the EHR implementation schedule might be at risk because of potential delays with interfaces and inadequate training.

“We are going to be doing testing both prior to and during the deployment to make sure that our interfaces are working, to ensure that the workflows are working, as well as to make sure that it’s operationally suitable for our needs in the Department of Defense,” said Cummings, who oversees DoD’s EHR modernization, including the operational, infprmation exchange and interoperability initiatives.

She added that DHMSM is contributing in training, change management and coaches to aid the deployment of the new EHR. “As we deploy to a location, we are not just training people how to use the system,” stated Cummings. “We’re actually teaching them how to take advantage of the business processes and the decision support that is inherent in the commercial tool.”

Nonetheless, the OIG suggested that Cummings, as the program executive officer for Defense Healthcare Management Systems conduct a schedule analysis to determine whether the December 2016 initial operational capability deadline is achievable and remain to monitor DHMSM program threats and report to Congress quarterly on the progress of the program.