The first draft of a request for proposals for the modernized Defense Department electronic health record is set for release in January, the newly-installed head of the DoD EHR procurement Healthcare Management System Modernization Program told an industry audience Nov. 13.
The new EHR, dubbed the DoD Healthcare Management System Modernization – shortened to DHMSM, which defense officials have taken to pronouncing “dim sum” – is a major automated information system program that came under the supervision of the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics in May.
The acquisition is the consequence of a decision by the secretaries of defense and veterans affairs in February to cancel a program for the development of a $4 billion joint EHR that would have run in both military and veterans hospitals.
The head of the program executive office overseeing the acquisition is Chris Miller, previously executive director of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, with a background in weapons systems.
“I’m an acquisition guy,” he told attendees of the AFCEA-Bethesda Health IT day. “I am not a doctor. I have never really dealt much with the medical IT world.”
Miller said he was asked to assume his job with only 24 hours’ notice – he took 48 – and initially approached it with the assumption that “hey, how hard can it be to buy an EHR system?” Since then, he said he’s found it to be “way more complicated – I mean, these things drive our hospital systems.”
Among the matters yet to be determined by the program office is whether to have a separate procurement for the functionality that would ensure interoperability with the Veterans Affairs Department EHR, he said.
The program office wants to a large role in crafting EHR standards, he said. “We want to become a technical leader in the standards community,” he added.
Among the requirements that the DHMSM RFP will include is capability of at least stage one of the meaningful use standard set by the Health and Human Services Department, a presentation slide of his noted. source
