Defense Dept. deploys EMR system

The military is a year away from completing the rollout of its electronic medical record initiative -- said to be the largest in the world.

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Dec. 12, 2005.

Washington -- When it comes to implementing electronic medical record systems, the U.S. military says the government and the private sector should pay attention to what's happening on the front lines -- literally.

The Dept. of Defense is on track to getting all of its hospitals and clinics online with its universal, interoperable EMR system by December 2006. When fully connected, all 9.2 million military health care beneficiaries will be able to have a paperless medical record that follows them wherever they go, even to the battlefield.

Department officials recently unveiled the system, complete with a new name and look. When completely implemented, AHLTA, short for Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application, will be the largest system of its kind to date.

The initiative, formerly known as CHCS II, will mean big changes for the 60,000 physicians and other military health care professionals that will be expected to make the shift from paper to digital records. Thousands already have had the chance to experience the new system.

The Defense Dept. started field-testing it at selected military installations at the beginning of 2004 and now has deployed it at roughly 60% of military health facilities.

But the initiative also will have a big effect on doctors who aren't part of the armed forces and who never see any servicemen or women in their offices, Dept. of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said during the official unveiling of the system at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Nov. 21.