The U.S. Coast Guard published an EHR acquisition request for information to FebBizOpps.gov, a move effectively striking the final nail into the coffin of a failed Epic implementation.

“This Request for Information (RFI) is part of a market research effort to assess industry capabilities that will best address the U.S. Coast Guard’s (USCG’s) need,” the Coast Guard noted.

The RFI comes almost a year to the day after the Coast Guard terminated its EHR contract with Epic — and actually reverted to using paper records — because of significant risks and various irregularities it uncovered.

[Also: U.S. Coast Guard pulls out of Epic EHR contract, forcing return to paper records]

The Coast Guard is now seeking information about both on-premise and cloud-based EHRs, including the option to share a hosted electronic health record service with another federal agency as it tried to do with the U.S. State Department for the Epic installation.

Coast Guard’s RFI documents also include a list of use case scenarios and a capabilities checklist that suggest a strong focus on data interoperability, population health, surveillance features, mental health, patient safety, as well privacy and security functions, among others.

[Also: Paper or pixels? Clunky EHRs have providers looking to the past]

“The solution will protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI) and will markedly enhance core and priority USCG health care services and improve interoperability with both the Department of Defense (DoD) Military Health System and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health systems,” Coast Guard officials wrote.

Final responses to the RFI are due May 26, 2017. 

Twitter: SullyHIT
Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com

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