Before the first health care workers received the COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 at Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command in Bremerton, Washington, Information Management Department staff members Rick Seward (left) and Richard Cornwell were assisting to ensure connectivity to the command’s new MHS GENESIS MassVax module (Photo by: Douglas Stutz, Naval Hospital Bremerton/Naval Medicine Readiness and Training Command).

Developing, pre- and post-pandemic

MassVax is speeding up the patient intake process by pre-populating registration data directly from a patient's electronic health record, or EHR, saving valuable time and allowing teams to focus on getting shots in arms, added Cantilina (who also serves as the Military Health System's deputy EHR functional champion). Patients have their identification cards scanned, rather than filling out traditional intake forms. Providers can quickly administer shots while scanning to record the exact moment a specific medication is given to a patient.

"As far as the post-pandemic use of MassVax is concerned, we not only plan on using it, but the capability was being developed for our use prior to the COVID-19 outbreak," he said. "In fact, our teams were particularly interested in using MassVax to facilitate the rapid administration of vaccines to troops preparing to deploy, as well as quickly administering vaccines to new recruits preparing for boot camp."

In its development cycle, MassVax is akin to the COVID-19 vaccines. The technologies to deliver similar products were in development long before March 2020 but were accelerated with additional resources set to respond to the pressing emergency of the deadly virus.

Cantilina explained that because of the pandemic, certain MHS GENESIS deployment activities that required staff to travel to support training efforts or facilitate new hardware and software installations were paused. But teams found ways to execute the mission of deploying MHS GENESIS while also mitigating the risk of contracting or spreading the COVID-19 virus, he added. MHS GENESIS is on track to be fully deployed by the end of 2023. At that point, the end state will be a single health record for all service members, veterans, and their families.

MHS GENESIS helps health care workers by "making it easy to do the right thing," Cantilina explained. Since it has been configured at an enterprise level, the system "leverages standardized workflows in each clinical area of practice, whether you're a doctor, nurse or technician. This simplifies how our providers care for patients as the system is designed to walk them through certain aspects of each patient encounter."

Cantilina again emphasized how the system alerts medical professionals of potential risks with each patient, like drug interactions or allergies.

Vasquez, at Twentynine Palms, was involved in the years-long planning that led up to the implementation of MHS GENESIS and already had experience with the new system from her employment in a civilian hospital.

"I love it," she said. "I'm excited about having one military record for everyone. And I love that there's a patient portal available, especially since a lot of our families travel and it's great for them to have access to their vaccination records and their actual patient history anywhere they go. It's amazing."

Please visit the MHS GENESIS Toolkit.