The coast guard has been making medical records with pencil and paper for approximately three years after their Epic EHR project failed. The U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Defense are joining hands to roll out the same electronic health record, MHS Genesis, in the future. The news was revealed by a reliable healthcare IT news source.
It was further disclosed that the Coast Guard will be deploying MHS Genesis to its sick bays and clinics by the effective utilization of a single outpatient and inpatient Cerner EHR.
Three years ago the Coast Guard terminated its Epic EMR Software contract after it failed due to several reasons. Since then the Coast Guard has been utilizing pen and paper to record the health conditions and other medical findings of its patients. It is said that the State Department and Coast Guard attempted to work jointly on the Epic EHR project, but due to a long list of concerns, the agencies were forced to abort the rollout.
Epic EHR developer, on the other hand, claimed that it did everything possible and fulfilled all terms of their agreement. They said everything was ready and the EHR software was ready to go-live, but still, the agency aborted the launch.
Last week, the State Department released a request for information regarding a solo EHR project. Officials said that the EHR they were looking for should have shared services capabilities as they intended to have shared services with other federal agency EHRs such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the DOJ.
The Congress and the Government Accountability Office criticized the Coast Guard for using paper records in January. They even termed Coast Guard program a “debacle”. With Cerner EHR now on the cards, things have started to look up for the Coast Guard as well.
