US Department of Defense (DoD)

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Kaazing Unveils DisasterAWARE ENTERPRISE™ Real Time Risk Intelligence Platform For Businesses Worldwide

Press Release | Kaazing, Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) | March 22, 2018

With new records being set each year for natural disaster losses, enterprises face an ever-increasing need to be prepared. For decades, DisasterAWARE has served the needs of top agencies worldwide, including U.S. Department of Defense, Homeland Security FEMA, the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a variety of international humanitarian aid organizations. With over 1.7 million users of DisasterAWARE mobile app, Disaster Alert for the public, spanning 115 international organizations, Kaazing is helping to broaden the reach of this critical, life-saving technology to provide businesses with an enterprise-grade solution.

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Advancing the Coordination of Health IT for Military and Government

Press Release | Defense Strategies Institute | August 12, 2016

Defense Strategies Institute is proud to announce their 11th DoD/VA and Gov Health IT Summit occurring on October 4-5, 2016. With the central theme of “Advancing the Coordination of Health IT,” the Summit will bring together senior leaders from DoD, VA, HHS, Federal and State agencies, along with leaders from Industry and Academia that support them, for two days of Government briefings and informal discussions in their "Town Hall" setting in Alexandria, VA. DSI has created a Summit that will bring together a variety of stakeholders in order to build out two days of discussion and debates that tackle many of the areas involved in modernizing the DoD and VA health systems in order to provide better care to our warfighters and veterans.

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Allscripts Joins Race for DOD EHR Contract as $11B Offer Looms

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | June 26, 2014

Allscripts, CSC, and Hewlett-Packard have announced that they are teaming up against Epic and IBM to bid for a massive Department of Defense EHR overhaul, it looks like new battle lines are being drawn in the quest to secure up to $11 billion from the ten to fifteen year contract to revamp the ailing health IT infrastructure of one of the most complex healthcare systems in the world. Read More »

American Medical Association’s Problem with the Lack of EHR Usability

Earlier this week Joe Conn, reporter for Modern Healthcare, broke the story that the American Medical Association (AMA) and 34 other medical specialty societies and organizations had sent a 9-page scathing letter to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) demanding a major overhaul of the government’s electronic health record (EHR) policies. According to Conn...

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An Epic conflict of interest

Pejman Yousefzadeh | The Daily Caller | December 27, 2011

Meet Judy Faulkner. She is the founder and CEO of Epic Systems Corporation in Wisconsin. She is also a member of the GAO Health Information Technology Policy Committee and an advisory board member of the Journal of Healthcare Information Management. She is also politically active...The $787 billion stimulus bill signed into law by President Obama in February 2009 included $19 billion for healthcare information technology (HIT), and created the Health IT Policy Committee, whose job it was to advise the federal government on spending the $19 billion allocation. The committee was to have one member responsible for representing information technology vendors. Judy Faulkner was designated as that member.

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Atlas Unplugged: The Six-Foot-Two Humanoid Robot That Might Just Save Your Life

Steve Ranger | ZD Net | January 21, 2015

From the people who brought you the internet, the latest version of the Atlas robot will be used in its disaster-fighting robotic challenge...

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Been there, Done that, Doesn’t Work: Veterans Health Administration IT goes back in time

If you have an interest in the worlds of economics, healthcare or technology, here’s a story that’s emerged this month that is worth noting for the record books. In the US, amidst the chaos of the Trump administration, yet another mistake has been made this month. For the record, it is worth noting that the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) ended up with a contract for a large IT solution for the next 10 years worth about $10 billion as of May 2018. On the face of it that may appear to be unremarkable news: just another big expensive contract for an IT system. Yet there is a part sad/part silly dimension to it that is well worth flagging up at this point.

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Cernering the Market

Mike Farahbakshian | Fed Health IT | July 10, 2017

After years of speculation and rumors, in a move that surprised absolutely no one, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs is moving to Cerner Millenium to replace its home-grown VistA electronic health record. On the surface this makes sense, because of DoD’s move to Cerner in 2015 and an overarching VA desire to move from custom software to COTS software. However, SecVA’s decision is only the beginning of an extremely long path, as DHA is finding with its MHS GENESIS project. Moreover, VA has a broader scope than DHA. Unlike DHA, whose primary goal is to provide a medically ready fighting force, VA handles a slew of additional tasks, including...

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Chuck Hagel and the Secret War Over DOD & VA Electronic Health Records

Dan Vernon | FedScoop | August 12, 2014

...Today, the agencies are moving down separate modernization paths, with DOD working on its Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization program (DHMSM) and VA planning commercial acquisitions for the next generation of its Veterans Integrated System Technology Architecture, known as VistA. But analysts, including one of the founding developers of VistA, point to years of missed opportunities for DOD to leverage what many consider to be superior existing capabilities in VA’s VistA system — an ecosystem of modular application components that in most cases have become industry standards (VA’s troubled scheduling system notwithstanding)...

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Clade X pandemic exercise highlights policies needed to prevent or reduce the worst possible outcomes in future pandemics

Press Release | Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security | May 15, 2018

The outbreak of a moderately contagious and moderately lethal novel pathogen precipitated a catastrophic end to the scenario in Clade X, the day-long pandemic tabletop exercise hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security on May 15 in Washington, DC. Clade X simulated a series of National Security Council–convened meetings of 10 US government leaders, played by individuals prominent in the fields of national security or epidemic response. Their dialogue as the scenario unfolded addressed significant uncertainties in current prevention and response capabilities, hamstrung by policy challenges at the federal level.

Cognosante Acquires Business Information Technology Solutions to Expand Military and Veterans Health IT Business

Press Release | Cognosante, BITS | October 27, 2016

Cognosante and Business Information Technology Solutions (BITS) announced today that Cognosante has acquired BITS, a rapidly growing provider of IT services and solutions to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). BITS, also known as The BITS Group, has more than a decade of experience in healthcare systems, enterprise business systems, business intelligence, and data analytics in the public health sector. It is one of the prime contractors of the VA’s $22.3 billion Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG).

College Students Tackle PTSD at First DC Hackathon

More than 50 college students from across the world gathered this previous weekend at HackDC 2015, the first Hackathon dedicated to crowdsourcing innovative ways to address the serious problem of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by creating mobile applications and solutions. The event, which started on Friday, went through Sunday afternoon. Held at the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center in the Annandale Campus of the Northern Virginia Community Colleges (NVCC), HackDC 2015 provided the participants with access to food, sleeping facilities, and showers so that they could work straight through the weekend. 

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Coming Soon: Pentagon’s Multi-Billion Dollar Health Records Contract

Frank Konkei | Nextgov | April 25, 2014

Sometime in the coming months, the Defense Department will bid out its Healthcare Management Systems Modernization contract, an effort so large in monetary size and game-changing scope that it could significantly influence the future of health care in the United States.

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Congress Passes Legislation Authorizing Critical Biodefense Programs

Press Release | Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense | June 5, 2019

The House yesterday passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. The bill reauthorizes existing statute governing public health efforts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Additions made by the bill - some of which were recommended by the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense - address biodetection, hospital preparedness, medical countermeasures and response. Many of these programs will enable HHS to better defend the nation against biological threats. Both chambers of Congress have passed the bill, and it will now go to President Trump for signature.

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Congress unhappy with DoD, VA health records progress

Leo Shane III | Marine Times | April 16, 2014

House lawmakers plan to hold back millions in dollars of technology funding from Defense and Veterans Affairs department planners until Congress is convinced they are making progress on developing a way to share electronic medical records. Read More »