Military Health System Must Balance Old, New Health IT

The Military Health System is knee-deep in working with the Veterans Affairs Department to develop an integrated health records system. But the Defense Department agency also must keep its legacy systems running in the meantime. That balancing act, said Karen Guice, the principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs and acting MHS chief information officer, is one key factor to their long-term success.

"What we are trying to pull off here is an iterative way of adding the new components or capabilities of an electronic health record, and then graying out that similar capability in our existing system," Guice said. "We are working on how to do that. How would you execute that?" She said the goal is to make it seamless for the providers as possible so they get the benefits of the new systems without any consequences about keeping the legacy in the background for a time until it's safe to turn off the legacy system...