The Department of the Defense (DoD) and the Defense Health Agency (DHA) awarded a $139 million, five-year contract to McKesson subsidiary RelayHealth for patient engagement and secure messaging solutions.
The solutions will serve the Military Health System’s (MHS) patients, physicians, physician assistants, nurse case managers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dentists, and other members of the care team. According to a RelayHealth press release, the solutions will help providers improve access to care for DoD beneficiaries, advance care team coordination across provider care settings and enhance patient engagement through secure messaging, educational content and care management tools that improve access to care team members and health data.
“[Secure Messaging] is a critical access tool that allows the MHS to increase capacity to meet enrollee demand for care by supporting delivery of virtual care through patient-to-provider and provider-to-provider communications before and after actual appointments,” the DoD stated in an announcement.
The DoD’s announcement also stated that secure messaging “facilitates delegation-of-care tasks to providers with the expertise to deal with them without escalating all messages to the physician level.”
The contract was a sole-source acquisition and includes account management services, training resources, and non-standard report preparation.
Pat Blake, president of McKesson Technology Solutions, noted in a statement the DoD’s ongoing efforts to innovate its health IT infrastructure and support the unique needs of the military health community. “The DoD is undertaking a significant technological change in its approach to the management of electronic health records. Our military families and clinical teams often face relocation, deployment and as a result, potential disruption in their healthcare delivery. Our solutions serve as a thread of technical continuity for patients to maintain access to their physicians and care teams,” Blake said.
