The Indian Health Service (IHS) provides health care to approximately 2.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, who are members of 574 federally recognized tribes. Through a network of IHS and tribal health facilities, as well as urban Indian health programs, these men, women and children depend on IHS as their principal health care provider and advocate.
GDIT supports IHS in its mission to improve the physical, mental, social and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives via a health system that embraces traditional knowledge and practices to foster thriving communities.
Challenge: Empower Teams, Enhance Patient Care
The IHS PATH EHR implementation represents a monumental effort for the agency, requiring careful coordination to replace a deeply embedded legacy system while maintaining uninterrupted care and data integrity. IHS provides services free of cost, and many of its patients live in rural areas where IHS facilities are the only available healthcare providers. These health services and the people who rely on them – including health care providers and staff – need and deserve modern IT infrastructure to deliver, track and manage care.
GDIT was chosen as the partner to help IHS accomplish this using Oracle Health technology and allow its systems to evolve and maintain industry standards.
Approach: Support Existing System, Collaborate While Delivering a New One
IHS’ existing EHR system, while serving its original purpose, presented opportunities for improvement in terms of integration and efficiency. As we embark on the modernization journey, it is essential to maintain the system’s stability and continuity to ensure patient care is not disrupted. Our approach centers on maintaining the current system while collaborating with Oracle Health, the leading commercial EHR vendor in the federal space, to design a more integrated and advanced solution. This partnership allows IHS to move from a decentralized, on-site technology to a modern, cloud hosted, centralized solution, reducing development and sustainment efforts for the agency.
Understanding the patient population and the importance of the IHS mission allows us to be an effective and innovative partner in developing a system that would provide a single, unified health record across multiple facilities. This will ensure that every care team, whether in primary care, specialty clinics, or the emergency department, has access to the same up-to-date patient information. This continuity will reduce duplication, prevent errors, accelerate decision making, and allow providers to deliver coordinated, high-quality care no matter where the patient receives services.
GDIT teams worked closely and collaboratively with the customer and partners. We facilitated workshops to inform the design and conception of the new PATH EHR system. We leverage Oracle Health technology to create an avenue for centralized information-sharing across all facets of care – from front-end registration and scheduling to patient communications and engagement. Additionally, we ensure the tool was easy to use and inclusive of smarter user workflows, requiring minimal training and freeing up for other essential work.
Impact: Launching a Multi-Faceted Health Solution Affecting Many in the IHS Ecosystem
Our team is actively designing, building, testing and optimizing the new PATH EHR system for IHS. With a planned 2026 launch, we envision bringing an improved user experience and better patient care to everyone from providers, to schedulers, to pharmacists and patients themselves.
Under the new system, emergency medicine providers can instantly view records across the entire IHS system as they’re triaging care. Behavioral health providers can see group and individual therapy notes, track outcomes and deliver personalized, integrated care. Pharmacists can see drug interaction checks and can more quicky and more safely dispense medications. Nurses and doctors can see and share information in real-time and offer more consistent monitoring, fewer delays in care and safer medication administration.
Through partnership with a leading commercial EHR solutions company, we can take a forward-facing approach in supporting IHS’s adoption of evolving technology and functionality. Together, these efforts will empower IHS to further enhance its mission delivery for the millions of American Indians and Alaska Natives who rely on its care and services.
Learn more about GDIT’s electronic health records (EHR) modernization capabilities.