Lloyd McCoy Jr., a market intelligence manager at immixGroup, has said the Defense Department’s budget request for fiscal year 2017 contains health information technology initiatives that would prioritize the deployment of a commercial electronic health record system.
McCoy wrote in a Fedscoop commentary published Tuesday that DoD proposed the commercial EHR platform as part of the Healthcare Management System Modernization program in an effort to replace the Military Health System’s legacy tools.
He noted that the Pentagon requested $458 million in FY 2017 funds to develop and maintain the program, including the acquisition of data integration, supply chain management, virtualization, logistics, and healthcare administration services.
DoD also expects to achieve initial operating capability for the EHR system by December and reach the deployment phase by 2022, he added.
McCoy said the Pentagon would also prioritize updates to battlefield medical information platforms, health IT interoperability, cybersecurity in medical devices, and telehealth programs.
He also cited the adoption of the Joint Operational Medicine Information Systems program and launch of the Medical Community of Interest virtual private network service as other health IT initiatives included in DoD’s FY budget request.
