Dive Brief:
- IBM Corp. and Epic Systems Corp. on Wednesday announced a 17-person group they have assembled to help advise the Department of Defense through implementation if they win the 11-year, $11 billion EHR contract.
- The team includes executives from large providers such as Kaiser Permanente, Geisinger Health System, Mercy Health, Partners HealthCare, and Sentara Health, who are already using Epic.
- At an event in Washington, DC, when the announcement was made, Sentara CIO Bert Reese said Epic users are eager to share strategies for easier implementation.
Dive Insight:
Healthcare experts say the bid is an effort to make the technology stalwarts stand out among the competition, and the contract is a big one. It's also got pretty much every major vendor in the ring, including Cerner, Accenture (the Healthcare.gov hero), Allscripts and MedSphere.
However, during the meeting concerns were raised about interoperability, or the ability share data between the Defense Department and the Veterans Health Administration—a charge that has been levied against Epic in the past.