Joint iEHR Spending Was Focused On Service Contracts

The bulk of spending on the joint EHR proposed by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs went to support service contracts in 2012, according to a new report from the Interagency Program Office (IPO), the agency in charge of modernizing the Military Health System's EHR software.

The two agencies pulled the plug on that joint effort in February and the DoD has since been looking to commercial vendors for its new EHR system.

In fiscal year 2012, the IPO spent $329.2 million of its $351.9 million budget on support services contracts, including program management support and Agile development, the report states.

It filled 141 of 236 open positions with permanent federal civilian workers or existing DoD employees, and employed 171 contractors.