Lockheed developing military health tracking system

The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin have agreed on a contract for the enhancement of a massive health care tracking system, according to company and military officials.

Lockheed was selected last month to develop Block 2 of the Theater Medical Information Program. The contract is worth $47 million, according to the company. The TMIP system is being developed to collect the medical record of service members, integrate that data into an overarching database and deliver the information to commanders or physicians.

"The real-world benefit of TMIP is using automation to collect battlefield medical data, use this data as part of the life long medical record, and to perform medical surveillance," according to a statement released by the TMIP program office. "The bottom line is that this system improves delivery of medical care for our men and women in uniform overseas."

Block 1 of the program was built by Northrop Grumman and is used in Iraq, Kuwait and on several Navy ships. Lockheed engineers are looking to build on the capabilities of the existing system and provide a more complete medical picture. Testing on Block 2 is scheduled to be completed by April 2005, and the system should be deployed by May or June of that year.

The TMIP program office said the Block 2 enhancements would include the use of hand-held devices to read the medical data, as well as more specific health tracking within occupations or environments. Block 2 also will improve the ability of health officials to transfer data to and from systems in the United States.

Military personnel will "see the medical clerk or the doctor using a laptop computer, or some kind of computer work station, capturing an electronic medical record of their encounter," said Ed Humphrey, Lockheed's TMIP program manager.

That information can be used to track individual medical histories or broad health trends in the force. Humphrey said the system could potentially be used to detect a biological weapons attack.

The system "looks for large trends, it looks for subtle trends."

The success of the TMIP, however, is still subject to human cooperation. In a March hearing of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Total Force, lawmakers expressed concern that military personnel simply were not entering the required medical information.

"That's a major issue," Humphrey said last week. "It's a training issue, ease of use."

Lockheed and military officials said they are working with physicians to boost user participation in Block 2.

"From the earliest development of this program, users were very much a part of how the system evolved," according to the TMIP program office. "Physicians, nurses, administrators, pharmacists and other military medical professionals were involved with developing the requirements, reviewing prototypes and functionally testing the end products."