Skip to main content

Military Health System

How MHS GENESIS will become essential to patients' health journey

Image of Dr. Robert Marshall, program director of the Department of Defense Clinical Informatics Fellowship at Madigan Army Medical Center. Dr. Robert Marshall, program director of the Department of Defense Clinical Informatics Fellowship at Madigan Army Medical Center.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Health Care Technology | MHS GENESIS Pre-Deployment Awareness | MHS GENESIS: The Electronic Health Record | MHS GENESIS

In 2017, the Military Health System started deploying MHS GENESIS, a new electronic health record, worldwide.

Ensuring proper training of both providers and patients is essential for the successful integration and sustainment of MHS GENESIS into MHS care.

To best prepare users to get the most out of MHS GENESIS, that training needs to include two key elements: peer training by local and regional experts in the new EHR; and leveraging data and insights obtained through clinical informatics.

Augmenting peer training with clinical informatics maximizes providers’ ability to learn best practices for using MHS GENESIS and pass them on to patients. Armed with such knowledge, both groups can more effectively increase readiness, improve access, improve care, and lower costs. The goal is to help providers spend more quality time with patients and improve transition to care throughout the MHS.

It is critically important to teach patients and caregivers how to take care of themselves because we have them in front of us less than 1% of the time. The other 99+% of the time, they are with their families and out in the community, so we must do all we can to get them to engage in healthy lifestyles. The best way to do that is with evidence-based education in which peer experts teach providers, providers teach patients, and patients use what they’ve learned to keep themselves healthier.

Peer Training

Research shows that adults retain information better from scenario-based and workflow-based training in one-to-one or small group settings.

Naturally, the best people to know the scenarios and workflows providers encounter in their specific roles are peers in the same. Experts in a particular aspect of MHS GENESIS can teach peers to consistently apply best practices for the EHR in their respective roles.

Peer training incorporates embedded clinical decision support at the point of care. These peer experts can share best practice templates, auto text, order sets, and similar tools across the enterprise and encourage user buy-in and adoption. This training teaches providers who are new to MHS GENESIS the proper decision-making process for diagnosis as well as treatment, improving care for patients.

Clinical Informatics

Teaching providers how to use MHS GENESIS is one part of helping the new system succeed. Another essential element is clinical informatics, which helps in teaching providers how to collect, analyze, and use EHR data to support improve efficiency and outcomes. It's critically important to ensure data integrity is as high as possible. If you have bad data, you make bad decisions, and none of us wants that.

Using better data to drive decisions helps improve clinical workflow, an area of significant interest and expertise for clinical informaticists and something important to train providers to do. It includes educating people on how to evaluate their current EHR workflow and training them how to eliminate waste and potentially dangerous actions.

The key is to teach optimal standardized workflow across the enterprise, which standardizes care across the enterprise. This improves outcomes.

Benefits

Peer experts who know clinical informatics can be a huge asset to their organizations by helping new and struggling users to better learn MHS GENESIS.

For providers, better training leads to better teamwork. Improved efficiency leads to more readable notes and improved care with less effort. Improved efficiency also increases job satisfaction, reduces burnout, and improves retention.

For patients, improved efficiency equals more face-to-face time with providers. Standardized documentation improves the quality of data in the EHR, which leads to more informed and effective care and better outcomes.

Biting the Bullet

Peer training backed by clinical informatics is a force multiplier that helps providers deliver care more efficiently.

MHS organizations need to “bite the bullet” and ensure peer experts have time and resources as part of their official job responsibilities to learn best practices, learn how to teach others, and actually teach them so everyone will use the system better. If all that is a collateral duty, if peer experts have to do it on their own time, it’s not going to happen.

Proper training on equipment required for a mission is essential for success in any environment, operational or garrison. MHS GENESIS has now been deployed at 74 MTF Commands spanning the entire United States and will be fully deployed to all MTFs by the end of 2023.

Dr. Robert Marshall is the program director of the Department of Defense Clinical Informatics Fellowship at Madigan Army Medical Center.

 

You also may be interested in...

Technology and Medicine: The Digital Age of Health Care

Article
8/26/2022
Photo of an afternoon panel of four people

Technology is transforming health care and incorporating new elements for providers in their practices.

Recommended Content:

Military Health System Transformation | MHS GENESIS: The Electronic Health Record | Health Care Technology | Defense Health Information Technology Symposium

Department of Defense Streamlining Health Tech for Beneficiaries

Article
8/23/2022
People in an exhibit hall.

Advances in technology has vastly improved the accessibility to beneficiaries’ electronic health records.

Recommended Content:

Health Care Technology | Defense Health Information Technology Symposium

Bulgarian Armed Forces Demonstrate Combat Medical Advancements

Article
8/22/2022
Two medics tend to a dummy in a simulated emergency.

Bulgarian Armed Forces showed off their combat lifesaving training to a U.S. delegation Aug. 10.

Recommended Content:

Education & Training | Health Readiness & Combat Support | Global Health Engagement

Theater Enterprise-Wide Logistics Systems (TEWLS)

Fact Sheet
8/12/2022

TEWLS consolidates numerous military logistics functions into a single application and database.

Recommended Content:

Health Care Technology | Solution Delivery Division

Joint Medical Asset Repository (JMAR)

Fact Sheet
8/12/2022

JMAR provides 24/7 access to medical asset information for users, on any computer

Recommended Content:

Medical Logistics | Health Care Technology | Solution Delivery Division

AHLTA 3.3

Fact Sheet
8/12/2022

AHLTA 3.3, a major component of the military’s electronic health record, is the primary clinical information system used by the military’s medical community to help generate, maintain, store and securely access data for 9.5 million beneficiaries.

Recommended Content:

Health Care Technology | Solution Delivery Division

Corpsman Care during Atlantic Ocean ops on MSC ship

Article Around MHS
8/4/2022
Military medical personnel performing emergency surgery

There’s a reason why U.S. Navy independent duty corpsmen are found assigned on isolated platforms from the wide expanse of the Indo-Pacific Theater to the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Global Health Engagement

Wellness Fair Showcases Ample Resources at Naval Hospital Bremerton

Article Around MHS
8/2/2022
Military personnel demonstrating a grip therapy

Naval Hospital Bremerton hosted a holistic Wellness Fair in late July 2022.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Performance Nutrition: Fuel Your Body and Mind | Total Body Preventive Health - Dental, Medical & Mental | Nutritional Fitness | Health Readiness Support Division

Robotically-Assisted Surgical Technology Expands Capabilities

Article Around MHS
8/1/2022
Military medical personnel uses robotics

Robotically-assisted surgery may sound like something from a futuristic science fiction movie to some, but it is actually a safe and increasingly common method shown to deliver better outcomes for patients than traditional surgery.

Recommended Content:

Health Care Technology | Research & Innovation

Soldiers Not Immune to Damage of Sun's Rays

Article Around MHS
7/28/2022
Soldiers not immune to damage of sun’s rays

Some soldiers have a greater risk for developing skin cancer than others. For July’s UV Safety Awareness month, soldiers should be aware of their risks and how to reduce their chances of skin cancer.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Medical and Dental Preventive Care Fitness | Summer Safety

Mind-Body Mental Fitness

Article Around MHS
7/27/2022
Mountain view

The lifestyle of active duty service members and their families comes with unique stressors that can often be compounded by living overseas. What most people don’t realize is that stress is a normal part of life. The feelings of stress are just indicators that something in our life needs attention, and even presents a possibility for positive change and growth.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Physical Fitness | Psychological Fitness | Stress | Mental Health is Health Care

Maxwell Clinic Transitioning to the MHS GENESIS System Sept. 24

Article Around MHS
7/26/2022
MHS Genesis infographic

The 42nd Medical Group will begin transitioning to MHS GENESIS Sept. 24 patients can expect to see an increase in wait times and a reduction in available appointments for approximately 120 days as healthcare teams adapt their office and clinic practices to new, standardized workflows.

Recommended Content:

MHS GENESIS: The Electronic Health Record | MHS GENESIS

Teddy Roosevelt, Navy Medicine, and the Birth of Physical Readiness

Article Around MHS
7/25/2022
Military personnel in exercise drill on deck of Navy ship

Today’s U.S. Navy espouses a “culture of fitness,” and “physical readiness,” but this was not always the case. In the early 1900s, many including the president himself, Theodore Roosevelt, were appalled by the lack of physical conditioning in the Navy.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support | Physical Fitness

Family Care Plan Sustains Unit Readiness

Article Around MHS
7/20/2022
Military personnel hugs family member

A Family Care Plan (FCP) is a method by which the Army ensures a Soldier’s Family is taken care of when the Soldier is absent due to military requirements.

Recommended Content:

Health Readiness & Combat Support

U.S. Army Mobile Laboratory Earns International Accreditation for Air Monitoring

Article Around MHS
7/20/2022
Military personnel evaluate lab results

A U.S. Army civilian mobile expeditionary laboratory has earned International Standards Organization 17025 accreditation for air monitoring.

Recommended Content:

Health Care Technology | Environmental Exposures
<< < 1 2 3 4 5  ... > >> 
Showing results 61 - 75 Page 5 of 54
Refine your search
Last Updated: June 22, 2022
Follow us on Instagram Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on YouTube Sign up on GovDelivery