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OCIO Celebrates One Year of Successful Reorganization

Charles M. Campbell
Military Health System
Chief Information Officer

The Military Health System Office of the Chief Information Officer embraces a business philosophy that capitalizes upon best practices of federal government, academia and industry to facilitate a creative environment and embrace enterprise knowledge management. To support such an environment, MHS strategically reorganized multiple offices within the MHS OCIO to form two new program offices—Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) and Defense Health Services Systems (DHSS). The principal focus of the reorganization is to assist our enterprise in its continuation of providing quality products for worldwide use in military medical treatment facilities during combat and contingency operations. The reorganization also eliminates organizational redundancies, streamlines operations and enhances the delivery of much-needed information technology solutions to all MHS beneficiaries.

The DHIMS Program Office is a culmination of the June 2008 merger of the then Clinical Information Technology Program Office, which was responsible for acquisition, development and sustainment of the military’s electronic health record (EHR) at home station, and the Theater Medical Information Program—Joint, which was responsible for the military’s deployed EHR. Together, the combined programs advance efforts of seamless, electronic documentation of the health care provided to all Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel, retirees and their beneficiaries. The new organization also more tightly aligns garrison and theater versions of the military’s EHR. The result is continuing functionality, services and benefits of the merged programs in DHIMS, with further benefits resulting from unified efforts.

DHIMS’ mission is to provide a trusted, comprehensive health information management system that seamlessly captures, manages and shares health information from the theater of operations to the home front and beyond in support of servicemembers and the military family, and its vision is to be the premier global electronic health record.

DHIMS’ systems support direct patient/provider relationship, population health, medical surveillance, clinical decision support and force health protection for deployed servicemembers. In addition, DHIMS provides an integrated suite of software to support the military’s deployed medical business practice. The theater medical information program “family of systems” supports complete clinical care documentation, medical supply and equipment tracking, patient movement visibility and health surveillance in austere communications environments. DHIMS serves as the medical component for the global combat support system and the global command and control system. This “family of systems” is used by warfighters and medical practitioners supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

The DHSS Program Office was also formed during the 2008 reorganization within the MHS OCIO. DHSS incorporates products from the former Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support (DMLSS), Executive Information Decision Support, and Resources Information Technology Program offices. This merger capitalizes on best practices resulting in reduced time to market, economies of scale and improved product quality. DHSS builds or maintains 28 products in three major areas: clinical support, medical logistics and resources. DHSS products help detect and contain the spread of disease, manage the delivery of drugs and medical supplies around the world, and track billions of dollars annually in health care services.

DHSS Clinical Support provides information technology solutions to help optimize clinical processes throughout the MHS. Its suite includes clinical data analysis, medical scheduling and appointing, provider privileging and credentialing, patient safety and electronic health care reporting, nutrition management solutions and special needs management.

DHSS Medical Logistics delivers the DMLSS automated IT system, a tri-service suite of modules standardizing medical logistics across the MHS, which improves the effectiveness and efficiency of MHS health care delivery by reducing the time providers and professionals spend on logistics. DHSS Medical Logistics systems and applications provide access to integrated joint service medical assets, along with the reporting of serviceable medical supplies and equipment available for in-kind exchange when patient movement items must accompany a patient to his or her final destination.

DHSS Resources provides world-class enterprise IT systems supporting the business of military medicine. These products support critical business processes such as personnel readiness, manpower and personnel management, learning management, medical coding and collections, as well as solutions that determine the total cost of providing health care to all MHS beneficiaries. Many in the MHS OCIO community contributed to making this a monumental year filled with multiple milestones for not only both DHIMS and DHSS, but also for the servicemembers and beneficiaries who depend on the accuracy of the Military Health System.

The OCIO would like to thank all for the continued support. We look forward to next year as we continue to strengthen and strive to meet servicemembers’ health care needs anywhere, anytime. ♦

For more information, contact Karen Roberts, director of MHS CIO communications, at (703) 681-8836.

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