The Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC), composed of medical enterprise technology developers, will work to create prototypes that link medical data, software and situational awareness to create a unified network across different parts of the military, such as research labs and tactical responders, FedScoop reported on Friday.
With the solicitation, the Department of Defense (DoD) will add another health data interoperability project to its electronic health records overhaul programs. The DoD currently anticipates spending $5.8 million on a prototype, with potential funds for follow-on work.
The request “aims to establish prototypes with the ability to provide commanders at all levels with visual understanding of how medical capabilities are arrayed throughout the operational environment,” MTEC wrote.
The operating concept will link networks together to create a common data architecture for commanders to control troops and weapons in air, land, sea, space and cyber conflicts. The networks will work in collaboration as opposed to only one domain.
Under the solicitation, MTEC will add visibility by linking disparate networks and software medical personnel in military use. The recent request parallels the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and other network modernization initiatives.
At the end of 2020, David Spirk, chief data officer at the DoD said the department also developed its data strategy with the JADC2 concept in mind. The department’s cross-functional team responsible for developing JADC2 has adopted the goals of the data strategy.
The Pentagon released the data strategy in Oct. 2020 that considers data as a strategic asset critical to building and maintaining operational advantage on the battlefield. “We’ve come to an agreement to bring the JADC2 data interoperability working group into one of our working groups under the DoD CDO Council,” Spirk said.
“When you lay the data strategy out and you really go to the principles inside of it, it’s about creating operational advantage and efficiency. The operational advantage puts JADC2 right at the heart of the data strategy, and it was designed to be that way," he added.
