The White House Gets An EHR – A Version of ALTHA Developed by the Military

This is good, I have said the Executive Branch is moving right along with technology, can’t say the same for the House and Senate. The House expects their wireless project to take 3 years as an example. It looks like they get speech recognition too. A couple years ago I was given a nice tour of the ALTHA system and they have done their homework, although a new improved model is in the works, but that’s software so what else is new. Actually for being 11 years old it does very good but as mentioned instead of small incremental updates, they are now looking at a major overhaul.

U.S. Military Embraces Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical to Drive Clinical Documentation with AHLTA

As I have posted before with Microsoft, the White House maybe in time might get a connection to HealthVault? We already know that parts of the military record systems are connecting or are working on pilot programs. The EHR is even to be used in Air Force One and at Camp David.

Microsoft is lead developer on military Personal Health Records project

Now the next question, will this system be used by the Office of the Attending Physician, that little extra benefit at the White House for those who need care and want to see a doctor. Several members of the House and Senate use it at $40.00 a month, what a bargain compared to what we have to pay. BD

Concierge Healthcare at Congress - The Office of the Attending Physician

In short, this is one way to make “participants” out of those in Washington who have no clue about what an epatient is. Last year at the Senate testimonies I watched the testimonies and the whole finance committee was a stranger to PHRS, had no clue what they were, so perhaps this might help out a bit and bring some levels of health care records to those working in more areas of government. I did have to say that when the Executive from Kaiser explained PHRs it was actually a bit amusing to see the entire group dumfounded and most couldn’t relate to their own doctor using electronic records, but hopefully with a little more than a year gone by now, that hopefully has improved. BD

ATLANTA – The Military Health System has set-up a version of its AHLTA electronic health record system for use in the White House, MHS chief information officer Charles Campbell said during a briefing here today.

The system, which was set up in just two months, is based on AHLTA Theater, the Defense department’s electronic health records system designed for rugged uses in war zones.

The White House EHR would be used in the residence’s clinic, in Camp David, as well as on Air Force One and Marine One, the president’s airplane and helicopter, Campbell said.

The White House EHR would be used in the residence’s clinic, in Camp David, as well as on Air Force One and Marine One, the president’s airplane and helicopter, Campbell said.

The upgrade has been criticized for taking too long but Campbell explained that not only does the new version have to be loaded onto massive central systems such as DOD’s Clinical Data Repository but on every one of 110,000 end user devices around the globe.

Campbell said by the end of March, MHS will be able to unveil specific plans and timetables for meeting these goals.

Then, “folks (will) know exactly where we are going. And what we’re trying to do, and when we’re trying to do it,” he said.