Epic passed over for contract worth up to $9B

The three finalists for the hotly-sought Defense Department contract were the teams of Epic and IBM; Allscripts, Computer Sciences Corp, and Hewlett-Packard; and the winning group, Cerner, Leidos, and Accenture. It is estimated that the contract would be worth less than $9 billion over its potential 18-year lifespan.

“Earlier today, the Department of Defense publicly posted its decision to award the DHMSM contract to the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health”, the company said.

The 10-year deal will help the military overhaul electronic health records for millions of active and retired military members.

“If we allow the D.O.D.to put in a system that then can’t interconnect, that is not interoperable with other systems, that will be a big mistake”, said Representative Phil Roe, a Republican from Tennessee.

The Pentagon aims to have an initial replacement fielding complete in the Puget Sound, Wash. region by the end of 2016 and eventually have the fully functional EHR system cover close to 150,000 military personnel and 10 million beneficiaries. She said that the Cerner team “stands ready to lean forward with the DoD to implement a world class electronic health records system”.

Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant defense secretary for health affairs, told the House Appropriations veterans affairs subcommittee in February 2014 the Pentagon wants to achieve full functionality of the system by 2023.