Health Innovations across the MHS Enterprise

Health Innovation and COVID-19

• Ensuring a Ready Medical Force and a Medically Ready Force includes mitigating the spread of COVID-19 by finding ways for units and installations to implement CDC-recommended preventive measures while continuing to complete their missions.
• The pandemic accelerated the pace of innovation across the MHS, recognizing that the old ways of delivering care would not be safe in the COVID-19 environment. 
• The MHS responded to COVID-19 by expanding virtual health capabilities, initiating drive-up testing sites, and putting in place measures to minimize risks to patients and providers, including pharmacy drive-thru and curbside delivery service.
• The MHS greatly expanded virtual health capabilities to continue providing quality health care in a setting that lowers risk to patients and providers.
  • This kept the MHS Direct CareDirect care refers to military hospitals and clinics, also known as “military treatment facilities” and “MTFs.”direct care system open, utilizing telephone visits, video visits, the Nurse Advice Line and asynchronously using secure messaging and e-visits.
• Staff at many military hospitals and clinics quickly developed inexpensive, easily constructed ventilators for use in hospital and field settings to make up for shortfalls in national stockpiles. 
  • These prototypes supported critical care teams, at home and abroad, who ran low on these life-saving medical supplies. These teams applied their skills and resources in a new way to innovate and demonstrate their ability to provide Ready Reliable Care.

Health Innovations across the MHS Enterprise

Recent MHS innovations include new research on the use of electrodes to treat traumatic brain injury (TBI), boothless audiometry, the MHS GENESIS electronic health record system, Connected Health (remote and virtual medicine), patient safety, and a multidisciplinary research network to support patients with TBI and associated health conditions, and many others.

• MHS Genesis
  • MHS GENESIS gives MHS staff the tools to deliver safer, patient-centered care, informed by data that empowers continuous improvement. 
  • The Opioid Clinical Decision Support Tool built into MHS GENESIS automatically screens patients’ medical history when their provider prescribes an opioid to help prevent opioid abuse, misuse, and diversion.
  • The MHS also continued rollout of the joint Health Information Exchange (jHIE), which connects military electronic health records to an expansive network of 45,000 civilian providers.
    • Using jHIE, all health providers within the system—whether at a military medical treatment facility or in the TRICARE civilian networks—can securely access beneficiary records and health information.
    • Expanding access to a patient’s health records helps health providers make informed treatment decisions leading to better patient care and lives saved.
• Research Addressing Concussion and Cognitive Impairment Issues
  • People frequently experience cognitive impairment following a mild TBI, or concussion. Current treatment options do not often directly address issues such as challenges with attention, concentration, and working memory. 
  • Researchers with the Traumatic Brain Injury Center of Excellence are working with low-level electrical stimulation to address these cognitive issues. 
    • Published studies report that electrical stimulation, known as transcranial direct current stimulation, can redirect the brain’s neural circuitry. 
  • Patients in TBICoE-led studies perform basic tasks to test working memory and attention while receiving low-voltage electrical stimulation. 
  • Researchers hope to learn if this type of intervention can improve the quality of life for active duty service members who sustained TBIs.
• HCE Boothless Audiometry
  • Boothless audiometry technology provides opportunities for early hearing assessments to be conducted in non-clinical audiology settings, such as military deployed environments, as well as pharmacy waiting areas, primary care clinics, and in-patient care settings.   
  • Health care providers can identify significant hearing loss early, supporting timelier referral for comprehensive audiological services to treat and prevent additional hearing loss. 
  • Earlier intervention may also reduce the potentially adverse, synergistic effects of co-morbid conditions such as depression, cognitive decline, and social isolation.
• Connected Health
  • The “Decide + Be Ready” app gives female service members information and decision making tools to make healthy and educated decisions about contraception, particularly in a deployed environment.
  • App features include: 
    • Educational modules on birth control methods; 
    • Information on postpartum, breastfeeding, emergency contraception and fertility awareness;
    • Capability to compare contraception methods based on medical history;
    • Capability to record questions for a health care provider; and 
    • Ability to share or print sections from the app for review and discussion with a health care provider.
• Virtual Health
  • The MHS deployed virtual video solution to allow our patients to access providers from home, through encrypted, safe telehealth solutions.
  • While many services went virtual during the pandemic, solutions for military health needed additional precautions to safeguard patient information and operational security.
  • The MHS had virtual and telehealth capabilities prior to the pandemic, but quickly made these services available to more beneficiaries by leveraging things like telephone visits, video visits, the Nurse Advice Line, secure messaging, and e-visits.