Acquisition Archives

I'm not talking about the disease -- although some folks treat it as such -- but the software that is the heart of the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, the electronic health record system at the Veterans Affairs Department.

The big obstacle for MUMPS is the perception that no one except VA uses it, a simplistic view reinforced by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., during a hearing on the future of VA information technology systems on Tuesday.

At about the same time Burr was bashing MUMPS, the Coast Guard awarded a $14 million contract to Epic Systems Corp. for an electronic health record system based on MUMPS. That should be no surprise because Judy Faulkner, Epic's chief executive officer, founded the company in 1979 after working on MUMPS for VA.

Faulkner has grown Epic into a giant in the heath care IT field, including a megabillion dollar contract with Kaiser Permanente, which has 8.6 million patients and 15,000 doctors. The company competes with Genera Electric Healthcare, which also based its software on MUMPS. The last I checked, GE was no mom and pop oufit.

So, why, of why, do VA and its chief information officer, Roger Baker, want to move off a MUMPS-based VistA, and why is the Defense Department considering Epic when they can tap into the stable and free system Faulkner based her company on?

If everything goes to plan, by the end of September the Coast Guard will award a contract for a spanking new commercial electronic health record system that will replace a network based on an ancient version of the Defense Department's electronic medical system.

The Coast Guard emphasized in its requirements for the new system it wanted a commercial product, and if such a product did not meet all its needs, then the system needed to be enhanced to meet the requirements before delivery.

Such an approach saves the humongous costs that result when federal customers ask vendors to bolt stuff on after they win a contract.

The Coast Guard's strategy might be a good one for the Military Health System to follow as it seeks a commercial replacement for its AHLTA electronic health record system.

But at the glacial pace MHS operates, the Coast Guard will have deployed its new system to its 500 medical personnel while MHS is still buffing and polishing requirements.

The Defense Department forks over about half its annual budget -- about $200 billion -- on acquisition of services such as information technology, transportation and upkeep of bases. It's track record of managing these buys is even worse than its record on the procurement of weapons systems, Ashton Carter, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, told a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday.

Lack of common terminology in part frustrates efforts to better manage acquisitions and rein in costs, he said.

"We don't even have a standard way to talk about services," Carter told the briefing, during which he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates detailed plans to cut $100 billion from the Defense budget during the next five years. Lack of standard definition for services makes about as much sense as buying ships or tanks without defining what they are, he added.

The lack of a standard language -- a taxonomy -- for services acquisitions means the Pentagon has no way of measuring productivity in more than 50 percent of its contract investment, Carter said in a memo to acquisition professionals issued on Tuesday on how the Pentagon can better manage its spending.

Here's the Carter short services taxonomy -- a must read for anyone acquiring the intangible stuff that oils the Defense machine:

Knowledge-based services

Electronics and communications services

Equipment-related services

Medical services

Facility-related services

Transportation services

In the almost forgotten era before the Internet, if you were sick enough to go to a hospital, all you had do was lie in bed, have doctors and nurses care for you, and you eventually got better.

Now, thanks to technology, the Veterans Affairs Department wants to develop an Interactive Patient Bedside Care Tool, or an e-patient terminal. The idea is to encourage patients to "be more actively involved in the care process."

VA wants a contractor to turn the bedside TV into an interactive terminal so patients can access the MyHealheVet website, stream educational videos, view a list of scheduled appointments for the day and, who knows, maybe a surgery webcam.

As anyone who has served in combat knows, if a buddy is wounded, the first two things you need to do are make sure he can breathe and his bleeding is stopped.

For the past several years, troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq have used an advanced Combat-Application-Tourniquet (C-A-T) developed by Composite Resources in Rock Hill, S.C. The tourniquet features a nylon strap and a plastic rod to tighten the strap to stop bleeding.

The regulation C-A-T costs about $28. But about two years ago the Army detected cheap knock offs made by a Hong Kong company that had entered the military's supply chain in Afghanistan and Iraq. The imitation sold for about $8.50.

They're accurate looking fakes, right down to the label and national stock number.

But as Col. John Kragh, a doctor at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston, pointed out in June, the rod on the fake tourniquet "is bendable to a point where it cannot work right. It's like bending Gumby's arm."

He said the fake tourniquet could be fatal because it cannot stop bleeding. Kragh added a decentralized ordering system probably accounts for the presence of the fake tourniquets in the field, with low-level supply personnel ordering the knock offs over the Internet based on price.

The Defense Department issued a warning about the knock-offs in April, Kragh said, and the Food and Drug Administration this month put out a safety alert about the tourniquets, which are also used by civilian first responders.

The lesson here is a good deal isn't always that; it can even be deadly.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency tweaked on Wednesday its original announcement from last week to award a sole-source contract to Google for geospatial visualization services so outfits such as Microsoft can apply.

The NGA added language that said, "All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency."

That does leave a bit of room for competition compared to the original notice, which said, "Google is the only source that can meet the Government's requirement. . . . A request for solicitation will be considered as nonresponsive."

Although Microsoft says its Bing Map Server could do the job, in the amendment posted on Wednesday NGA went to great lengths to clarify that only Google Earth meets it requirements, which include "compatible capability across networks, global access, unlimited processing and software licenses, and access to the Google Earth hosted content through widely used Open Geospatial Consortium service interfaces."

NGA also pointed out it has made a "significant investment" in Google Earth technology, which runs on both secret and top secret networks. The agency added, "DoD and Intelligence Community have made additional investments to support client and application deployment and testing that use the existing Google Earth services provided by NGA."

Maybe Microsoft should concentrate on Mars.

I reported on Aug. 20 that the folks over at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency determined only Google had the smarts to handle visualization of the planet.

NGA said in a FedBizOps announcement last week that it planned to award Google a sole-source contract for Web-based access to geospatial visualization services because the company was the only outfit on Earth that could meet the viewing requirements.

Not so fast, said Microsoft, which told me that the MS Bing Map Server could do the job, too.

Now it appears NGA has re-thought, at least, the wording of the Google sole-source contract.

Karen Finn, the amazingly responsive NGA public affairs chief, told me in an e-mail that the agency is going to post a revised Earth visualization notice on Wednesday that will be more "technically specific on the requirements for support and license. NGA appreciates all interest and believes the revised synopsis will explain NGA's requirement with more specificity. Interested parties may still respond to the revised synopsis."

Watch this space on Wednesday for another planetary update.

Here's a loopy procurement that Defense Secretary Robert Gates should cancel immediately if he's serious about saving money: The General Officer Transition Course hatched last week by the Army Contracting Center of Excellence.

ACE wants to spend some taxpayer bucks to teach the about-to-retire generals such hard to learn stuff as proper civilian senior executive attire.

I'll make that easy (at no charge to ACE and the retiring generals): Take thyself to Brooks Brothers and ask a sale person to outfit you with a suit, matching shirt and tie, (or a fine dress and blouse for the women generals) and you will only need a small second mortgage to buy four complete rigs. Brooks even does underwear, which I find much more comfortable than military skivvies.

ACE also wants a contractor to teach generals how to write resumes, search for a job (including, I kid you not, how to look at job ads) and how to conduct a job interview. (My advice: Leave the Hooahs at home.)

How come there's no PFC Transition Course?

This item was updated at 4:22 pm, Aug. 20, to reflect a reply from Microsoft.

Or, based on this sole-source contract announcement from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Google now owns, at the least, visualization of the planet.

NGA says it needs a secure system that will provide Web-based access to geospatial visualization services and Open Geospatial Consortium compliant Web-service interfaces. It says only Google can do the job.

"Google is the only source that can meet the government's requirement for worldwide access, unlimited processing and Open Geospatial Consortium compliant Web service interfaces," said NGA, which plans to award the company a two-year contract, with two one-year options.

NGA did not detail the value of the Google deal, but I have a hunch it's big bucks.

I've asked Microsoft what its Bing folks think of this, but have not heard back.

Update: Micorosft spokesman Keith Hodson said the company's Bing Maps Server can meet the NGA's requirements.

I reported on Monday the Military Health System decided to consider commercial software for its loathed AHLTA electronic health record system. The folks over at MHS told me the planning process started in December 2009, with establishment of an EHR Way Ahead Planning Office this February.

For those into wiring diagrams and org charts, the EHR Way Ahead Planning Office (EWAPO, right?) resides within the MHS Joint Medical Information Systems Program Executive Office under the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Mary Ann Rockey, acting MHS CIO (she's acting because Chuck Campbell, the CIO, has been dispatched to the "in limbo" ASD/NII, an organization slated for whatever lies beyond limbo) told me in an e-mail EWAPO was stood up "to look into the options available for the future of the military's electronic health record."