Pentagon
Aerial view of the United States military headquarters, the Pentagon, September 28, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Reed Reuters

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) bids for an $11 billion Pentagon project that involved modernisation of the Military Health System (MHS) clinical systems.

The project is dubbed as the Department of Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) contract. DHMSM contract is aimed at creating a modern technology that can be utilise in servicing the 9.7 million military beneficiaries, retirees and dependents.

IBM partners with Epic, the market-leading provider of electronic health records (EHR) in bringing the Pentagon project in complete realisation.

The IBM-Epic team will be led by IBM's Chief Medical Information Officer, Dr Keith Salzman.

"With DHMSM, we have the opportunity to begin a historic transformational journey for the DoD, and pave the way for the modernization of the entire ecosystem of healthcare delivery for our nation," Salzman said in a statement.

"Our collaboration with Epic for DHMSM was a natural extension of our global partnership. Together we understand that we must step forward and bring our best to improve health outcomes for those who proudly serve our nation. Improving quality of care and reductions to the overall costs for our military will be our primary goal. This is going to require bringing a physician's mindset, proven past performance and a commitment to innovation," Andy Maner, Managing Partner, IBM US Federal added.

Epic's software is widely used in US' healthcare industry. Johns Hopkins Medicine, Partners HealthCare, Cleveland Clinic and Kaiser Permanente are just few of the healthcare providers that Epic had been servicing in its long years of service.

"Service members, their families and the healthcare providers who care for them deserve the best healthcare our country can provide. They would benefit from an integrated system that leverages best practices from other large and successful healthcare organizations. We would be honored to be part of the solution to modernize the MHS. In collaboration with IBM, we can provide a successful implementation that will support innovation and interoperability within military healthcare," Carl Dvorak, President at Epic, said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tony Abbott visits a Brooklyn technical school, powered by IBM, in order to see a model of the study-to-work systems in schools. The visit is in lieu of crafting the same earn and learn philosophy with schools in Australia.

Mr Abbott also became the very first Australian prime minister to pay respects to the National September 11 memorial at the Pentagon.

"I particularly acknowledge the 10 Australians who died that day," Mr Abbott said.