The Indian Health Service (IHS) – a Department of Health and Human Services agency – awarded General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) a $2.5 billion indefinite delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to modernize its electronic health record (EHR) system, according to a recent release.
IHS provides Federal health services to 2.6 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives belonging to 574 Federally recognized tribes in 37 states.
“This new electronic health record system will improve the lives of American Indians and Alaska Natives nationwide by providing essential tools to lower barriers to healthcare,” said Kamal Narang, GDIT’s vice president and general manager for Federal Health.
Under the 10-year contract, GDIT will replace the agency’s decades-old record and patient system, which is used for health system tasks from intake and patient registration to insurance billing.
The new updated system, a new cloud-based enterprise solution from Oracle Health, intends to ease how patients and providers gain access to updated and accurate information. Oracle Health’s EHR is also utilized by the U.S. Department of Defense.
GDIT, alongside Oracle Health, will help the health service “improve patient safety and outcomes, clinical quality measures, agency performance reporting and disease management.”
The new system would enable better data access and sharing across geographically dispersed IHS and tribal health facilities nationwide, improving patient experience and quality of care. The system will be hosted in a secure Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program high cloud environment, which will scale to meet the future needs of the program.
“We are confident that our technology and partnership with GDIT will help IHS improve the experience for providers and deliver better healthcare outcomes for millions of American Indians and Alaska Natives,” said Mike Sicilia, executive vice president of Oracle Industries.
