SAN DIEGO – Air Force Maj. Gen. Lee Payne, Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) assistant director for combat support and Military Health System (MHS) GENESIS Functional Champion, toured Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego’s Naval Branch Health Clinic, met with senior leadership, and hosted an MHS GENESIS kick-off event at Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) Oct. 2.
DHA is one of eight combat support agencies that provide support to combatant commanders. DHA enables Army, Navy, and Air Force medical services to provide a medically-ready force as well as a ready medical force. MHS GENESIS is a new, modern electronic health record from the Department of Defense (DoD).
“MHS GENESIS is scheduled to ‘go live’ in December 2020 at military bases in the San Diego area,” said Payne. “DHA started activating MHS GENESIS at four bases in Washington State in 2017, then at four more bases in California and Idaho.”
MHS GENESIS is a single, continuous record of healthcare for service members and their families that is similar to the one currently in-use at thousands of civilian hospitals, but is adapted to the unique needs of the military. Sailors and Marines can expect an increased level of efficiency when dealing with their health records and providers.
“Sailors and Marines can expect improved, higher quality, and more efficient care,” said Air Force Col. Thomas Cantilina, MHS’ chief health informatics officer. “[Military members and beneficiaries] will have access to an improved patient portal, where they can view their laboratory reports, X-rays and notes from their doctors.”
MHS GENESIS updates biannually, ensuring the system keeps current records and software modernizations.
“The system isn’t static anymore,” said Payne. “We’re constantly improving records, workflows, training, network stability, and the governance of the system.”
Compared to the current healthcare records systems, MHS GENESIS is already a major improvement.
“Within the first year of bringing MHS GENESIS online, there have been more system updates than we had during the entire lifetime of the legacy system,” said Cantilina.
A patient’s new, electronic healthcare record will begin during their in-processing at their Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS).
“The electronic record will start at MEPS and will go through the service member’s entire active duty career and will be transferred to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA),” said Payne. “Eventually, when all records are digitized, MHS GENESIS will span across the DoD and VA.”
Cyber security is a top priority of DHA leaders. Beneficiaries and providers can rest assured that MHS GENESIS’ cutting-edge technology is an industry leader.
“This is the safest healthcare system in the world,” said William J. Tinston, Defense Healthcare Management System’s program executive officer. “We minimized all of the available threat surfaces, and we continue to advance our cyber defenses.”
The military is ever-changing, and with the roll-out of MHS GENESIS access to, and security of, quality military healthcare will improve. Once the system is fully-implemented across the DoD, MHS GENESIS will offer automated, real-time clinical decision support for doctors and care providers. It will allow patients to directly communicate with their providers, have lower overall maintenance costs than the legacy system, and be fully-compliant with the DoD’s cybersecurity requirements.
NMCSD’s mission is to prepare service members to deploy in support of operational forces, deliver high quality healthcare services, and shape the future of military medicine through education, training and research. NMCSD employs more than 6,000 active duty military personnel, civilians and contractors in Southern California to provide patients with world-class care anytime, anywhere.
Visit navy.mil/local/sd/, facebook.com/NMCSD or health.mil/MHSGENESIS for more information.