The Department of Defense (DOD) announced this week that it went live on the MHS Genesis Cerner electronic health record (EHR) system with an additional 10,000 clinicians and other providers as part of its most recent deployment with locations in 12 new states.
For this most recent deployment wave, DOD launched the MHS Genesis EHR system in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
MHS Genesis is now currently live and operational across more than 600 military treatment facilities with more than 41,000 total active users, according to officials. "The staff at these locations worked tirelessly to adopt a new electronic health record system, while continuing to battle a global pandemic," said Holly Joers, acting Program Executive Office Defense Healthcare Management Systems (PEO DHMS). "We applaud their focus on the mission and partnership in this important transformation."
The Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) developed MHS Genesis, the Military Health System's new EHR, and has been providing program management and technical expertise to the Program Executive Office Defense Healthcare Management Systems since 2015.
Back in 2018, there was criticism and frustrating regarding the initial feedback on the first four military site EHR rollouts. One Politico report detailed the first stage of implementations, noting that it “has been riddled with problems so severe they could have led to patient deaths.” Indeed, some clinicians at one of four pilot centers, Naval Station Bremerton in Washington, quit because they were terrified they might hurt patients, or even kill them, that report stated.
But things seem to be turning a corner now. The DOD EHR rollouts are being deployed across the U.S. and overseas through a total of 23 waves. Each wave will target a specific region over one year, with an average of three hospitals and numerous physical locations for each wave. This approach enables the DOD to take full advantage of lessons learned from prior waves to maximize subsequent waves' efficiencies. Full deployment of MHS Genesis is expected by the end of calendar year 2023, according to officials.
Meanwhile, on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) side, with the modernization of its own EHR system tangled up in delays, senior officials last month announced that they were ordering a 12-week review of the process.
