Epic, IBM reveal advisors for DoD bid
Epic and IBM, which have teamed up to win the massive federal contract to replace the Department of Defense's ailing electronic health record system, revealed this week they would not be going it alone: They've recruited a small army of healthcare experts -- including a CIO and a patient advocate -- to help give them an edge.
The advisory board, which includes representatives from several of top U.S. healthcare systems, is part of IBM and Epic's bid for the work, which could pay as much as $11 billion through 2023.
There are three other bids for the project. DoD is expected to award the contract in June 2015.
The advisory group comprises 17 executives, physicians and veterans from a cross section of Epic clients, including three winners of the HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award, according to the press statement, released by IBM on Jan. 7.
Advisors include members from Kaiser Permanente, Partners HealthCare. It also includes physicians and experts from the American Medical Informatics Association, Duke University Health System and School of Medicine, Geisinger, Gundersen Health System, Mount Sinai Health System, Nemours, Sentara Healthcare, Sutter Health, UC San Diego Health System and Yale-New Haven Hospital.
"Each member of the Advisory Group will provide input on their successful experiences with governance, interoperability, content, training, analytics, research, population health, behavioral health, online patient self-service and more," according to the news release.
The elephant in the room is still interoperability. While Epic has defended its interoperability chops recently, it continues to be dogged by criticisms that its EHR remains a closed system.
[See also: Epic defends interoperability bona fides and Epic works on its interoperability image.]
Besides Epic and IBM, three other teams are vying for the contract
- Computer Sciences Corp., partnered with HP and Allscripts
- Cerner, Leidos, Accenture Federal and Intermountain Healthcare
- PricewaterhouseCoopers with General Dynamics Information Technology, DSS Inc. and Medsphere
Related stories:
IBM, Epic unite for massive DoD contract
DoD calls for best bids on EHR project
Intermountain to aid Cerner on DoD bid
