I have confirmed that AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, experienced an "enterprise-wide" shutdown that lasted most of the day Tuesday.
AHLTA provides electronic records for 9.6 million active duty personnel, retirees and their families, and I'm told the failure of the system hit operations globally. I have confirmed this with three sources, including military clinicians.
The meltdown occurred during a scheduled system upgrade and maintenance operation. Evidently back-up servers did not kick in, which required a complete reboot that took most of the workday.
I'm waiting to hear from the Military Health System on this, and plan an update in our news section Thursday.
Bob Brewin
Bob Brewin joined Government Executive in April 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience as a journalist focusing on defense issues and technology. Bob covers the world of defense and information technology for Nextgov, and is the author of the “What’s Brewin” blog.
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