The Military Health System's MHS Genesis tools now include new patient accounting, medical coding, and patient registration and access capabilities.

WHY IT MATTERS
The Department of Defense and The Leidos Partnership for Defense Health, which designed and developed MHS Genesis, has rolled out the new electronic health records in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Along with the rollout, MHS Genesis will improve communication between the DOD’s clinical and business groups and reveal insights into costs, Liz Porter, Leidos Health Group president, said in the announcement.

"Revenue cycle is a fully-integrated platform that will replace paper-based practices and introduce a new clinically-driven patient accounting system, including medical coding software and a comprehensive billing database for the military health system," she said.

Features include electronic data interchange support with an updated front-end patient identification and registration process, said Holly Joers, program executive officer at the DOD's Program Executive Office Defense Healthcare Management Systems.

The DOD is upgrading from Tricare Online across military healthcare facilities in the United States and overseas in 23 waves, with each targeting a specific region with an average of three hospitals and numerous clinical locations.

The Cerner EHR is about 67% deployed, according to the Leidos announcement. It's now available at more than 1,800 MHS locations, reaching 5.1 million DOD beneficiaries.

The Leidos Partnership also includes Accenture and Henry Schein One and has more than 35 businesses supporting the MHS Genesis delivery, as well as a dental system, identity management and cybersecurity.

The DOD expects to complete deployment to all its garrison facilities by the end of 2023.

THE LARGER TREND
While the Leidos Partnership has been working to revamp the DOD's EHR since 2015, and deployment was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, MHS Genesis was rolled out to 12 states last year.

Development into revenue cycle management for the DOD's EHR replaces previous paper-based practices and adds clinically-driven accounting with a comprehensive billing database.

ON THE RECORD
"The MHS GENESIS system continues to leverage commercial best practices to help improve clinical outcomes with each deployment," Joers said in the announcement.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.