Medical ADP Systems: Defense's Tools and Methodology for Managing CHCS
Performance Need Strengthening (Letter Report, 07/15/94, GAO/AIMD-94-61).

The Composite Health Care System, an automated medical information
system being developed by the Defense Department (DOD), is intended to
be the backbone for the military's worldwide medical operations. It is
designed to provide medical personnel with instant access to patient
information, from medical history to current treatments or vital
statistics. As such, the system's performance and response times will be
critical. DOD, however, is placing the performance of the system at risk
because it has not provided adequate performance measurement and
analysis tools or corrected weaknesses in its performance management
methodology. Without appropriate performance measurement and analysis
tools, DOD cannot diagnose causes of response-time problems or project
how workload growth and configuration upgrades will affect system
response times. Moreover, DOD's decision not to focus on routine
analysis and elimination of extremely long response times can discourage
system use. The lack of reliable methodology to plan for reserve
capacity has also led to the unnecessary purchase of excess computer
processing power. Unless these problems are corrected, DOD risks
continuing to replicate and proliferate system performance problems and
adding to the costs of deploying the system.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  AIMD-94-61
     TITLE:  Medical ADP Systems: Defense's Tools and Methodology for 
             Managing CHCS Performance Need Strengthening
      DATE:  07/15/94
   SUBJECT:  Medical information systems
             Information systems analysis
             Health services administration
             Medical records
             Computerized information systems
             Military cost control
             Health care cost control
             Military hospitals
             Quality assurance
             Information resources management
IDENTIFIER:  DOD Composite Health Care System
             CHCS
             CHCS Performance Management Plan
             
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