8 Companies That Want A Piece Of The DoD's $11 Billion EHR Contract

Place Your Bids

Interest is starting to mount for the Department of Defense (DoD) contract to modernize the department's health system for more than 9.7 million military beneficiaries. With an $11 billion price tag, it is no wonder that the contract is attracting some big-name solution providers and vendors. The DoD Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) gives the contract winner until 2017 to have the Military Health System working with initial operating capabilities, and fully up and running by 2023.

The DoD has said that it expects to choose between four and six bids for the project, so there will potentially be more bids to come. In the meantime, take a look at who is putting themselves in the running for the contract and what they bring to the table.

IBM

IBM said in the middle of June that it would be teaming up with Electronic Health Record company Epic for a bid on the $11 billion contract. IBM said that it would bring its experience with large-scale solutions delivery, 300 federal health-care consultants and doctors, and Watson technology to the table in the partnership bid.

"Improving quality of care and reductions to the overall costs for our military will be our primary goal. This is going to require bringing a physician’s mindset, proven past performance and a commitment to innovation,’ said Andy Maner, managing partner, IBM U.S. Federal.

IBM Chief Medical Information Officer Keith Salzman will lead the partnership along with IBM's Federal Healthcare practice.

Epic

Teaming up with IBM, enterprise health IT suite Epic is bringing its Electronic Health Record solution to the partnership. Epic's solution already supports more than 20 billion data transactions a year to third parties and covers 100 million patients. The DHMSM system would cover 9.7 million military beneficiaries.

"Service members, their families and the health-care providers who care for them deserve the best health care our country can provide. They would benefit from an integrated system that leverages best practices from other large and successful health-care organizations," said Carl Dvorak, president, Epic. ’We would be honored to be part of the solution to modernize the MHS."

CSC

Solution provider powerhouse CSC entered the fray at the end of June for the contract. The Falls Church, Va.-based solution provider, No. 4 on CRN's 2014 Solution Provider 500 list, said that its experience in solutions delivery will round out its partnership with Allscripts and Hewlett-Packard.

"We selected a world-class team for developing a solution that delivers the level of service our military personnel and their families deserve," a CSC spokesperson told CRN at the time. "As the world's largest health integrator, our goal is to bring together the best mix for meeting and exceeding our clients' needs. In this case we'll being together the necessary DoD mission, medical IT and health knowledge along with advanced technologies built on an open, agile and scalable platform."

Hewlett-Packard

HP is joining with CSC and Allscripts for a contract bid, the company said in late June. More specifically, HP said it is adding its health-care IT expertise, including a long history of working with military health, the Veterans Association and Department of Health and Human Services. HP said its solutions already cover 200 million patients and 2.8 billion transactions around the world.

Allscripts

Allscripts is the third component of the HP and CSC team, bringing its electronic health record solution to the partnership. Chicago-based Allscripts has one of the largest client bases in the industry for its EHR system, some of which include the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, North Shore-LIJ Health System, New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Allscripts said in the release that it thinks its open architecture in particular will set it apart to help reuse systems and data and leverage technology down the road.

Accenture

The most recent entry in to the fray is a team led by current Healthcare.gov systems integrator Accenture Federal Services. The solution provider, a subsidiary of Accenture, No. 3 on CRN's 2014 Solution Provider 500 list, will be joining with Cerner and Leidos for the bid, as confirmed by Modern Healthcare magazine. Accenture Federal Services has already developed a similar system upgrade for the Spanish Ministry of Defense, starting in 2006, including implementing Electronic Health Records and developing a unified health system for multiple departments.

Cerner

Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner joined with Accenture at the end of June to make a bid for the $11 billion contract. As the world's largest publicly traded health information company, Cerner's electronic health record solutions will help provide the backbone for the partnership. The $2.9 billion company already services more than 3,000 hospitals, 60,000 physicians and 3,600 extended care facilities. The Military Health System that the contract plans to replace covers around 56 hospitals and 360 clinics.

Leidos

Reston, Va.-based Leidos is the third company involved in the team bid with Accenture and Cerner. Leidos was spun off from large government integrator Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in September, leaving now $4 billion SAIC as a separate entity. Before the split, SAIC helped build the Composite Health Care System, which is still in use today by the Military Health System.