The Pentagon is close to awarding a $10.5 billion, 18-year health information technology contract – the largest since the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov award – to upgrade a system used by 9.5 million active and retired military members, reports say.
But some critics fear any Pentagon health IT contract will be another disaster in the making.
Critics say the project to build a new electronic health record (EHR) system will bloat budgets but won't be able to let doctors for service members smoothly and securely share medical records across the military, Veterans Administration and private health systems,
Politico reports.
Tennessee Republican Rep. Phil Roe, a doctor who tracks the project, vows to keep tight appropriations controls over the project.
"I don’t want some other congressman to be sitting where I am 10 years from now and saying, ‘Why can’t the military and the Veterans Administration share records?'" Roe, a senior member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, tells Politico.
Three private industry giants are in the running for the contract: Epic Systems, Cerner and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, the
Washington Post reports.
But critics complain EHR systems are hard to use, and none are Internet-based, making sharing information between different systems difficult, the Post reports – fueling fears the Pentagon won't be able to build a records system that interacts seamlessly with the Veterans Health Administration.
"None of the three finalists has been able to improve overall outcomes or reduce costs in the private sector despite a track record spanning more than a decade with complete freedom from oversight," Dean Kross, a Pittsburgh cardiologist who studies health-care IT, tells the Post. "How can anyone expect that to change now?"
Politico notes that in April 2009, President Barack Obama committed the VA and Pentagon to building a smooth record-sharing program, and in 2011 they set off to create a joint EHR system.
But after spending nearly $1 billion, the agencies went their separate ways in 2013.
Instead, the VA is updating its homemade, open-source EHR system, known as VistA, while the military decided to scrap its EHR and buy a commercial version.
Investors in the health IT sector are skeptical about the Pentagon contract, since none of the EHR bidders has had to contend with a client as complex as the Defense Department, Politico reports.
And retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Verbeck worries whoever wins the Pentagon bid will become "the Standard Oil of health IT."
"It will become a monopoly at a time when we need to be moving to solutions that allow everyone to participate," he tells Politico, adding there should be a year-long delay in awarding the contract.
"They should take some time to look at what the cloud has to offer. Look at a more creative acquisition."
The Post reports the Pentagon contract award could be awarded "within days."
The finalists have teamed up with tech or defense powerhouses to bolster their chances: Epic with IBM; Cerner with Leidos and Accenture; and Allscripts with Hewlett-Packard and Computer Sciences.
Industry insiders tell the Post Epic has the edge; it already controls the medical records of 6.3 million patients in the United States.
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