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The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 directed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD) "to establish a center of excellence in the prevention, diagnosis, mitigation, treatment and rehabilitation of military eye injuries." For the past year, Harris has worked with the resulting Vision Center of Excellence and Defense Health Information Management System to design, develop and deploy a Defense and Veterans Eye Injury and Vision Registry to record the occurrence, treatment and outcomes of military eye-related injuries.
Under the first new contract, Harris will operate, maintain and enhance the registry for three years, working as a subcontractor to Pelatron, Inc. The total contract value for Harris is $2.8 million.
Under the second, five-year $14.3 million contract, Harris will populate the registry with information from medical records and other documentation for all eye injuries sustained by service members. DoD and VA medical researchers will mine this massive dataset for information on care and outcomes that will be used to improve eye-injury treatment protocols on and off the battlefield.
"As eye injury rates on the battlefield remain high, the Defense and Veterans Eye Injury and Vision Registry is a critically important new tool in the effort to improve care for our service members and veterans," said Jim Traficant, president, Harris Healthcare, based here. "The work done by Harris to collect treatment and outcome information will allow the Vision Center of Excellence to conduct multidimensional studies to improve readiness, and enhance patient care and outcomes."
