The Army’s health IT hothouse

Good article talking about what is going on with the DOD and healthcare...telemedicine is fueling some of the most sophisticated health IT developments in the world...BD

Today, DOD produces a torrent of research that has put it years ahead of most private organizations when it comes to understanding how IT can improve health care. Work is under way on applications ranging from a digital dog tag loaded with personal health information, an electronic medical record (EMR) tool that supports triage on a global basis and a Web-based system that lets military doctors compare clinical data on eye surgeries.
But the center doesn’t spend all of its time on high-level architectural problems. Much of its work is focused on the more microscopic needs of health care specialists.
For instance, surgeons at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center wanted to measure the efficacy of the refractive eye surgeries they were performing. So they asked TATRC to adapt an existing medical information system called the Field Deployable Record (FDR) into something that could meet their specific needs.
RSIS, a Java-based client/server application, has since been enhanced with a Web interface to become Web-enabled RSIS (webRSIS), whose easy-to-use interface for recording information during surgery enables surgeons to manage and accurately report outcomes.
“The interface is modeled after the doctors’ workflow,” Jeffrey said. “It is designed for data capture with the doctors in mind. The software captures information in the same way they are used to so it doesn’t interfere with their current workflow.”