Additionally, it provides secure online access to all Military Health System (MHS) beneficiaries records for nurses, corpsmen, medics, technicians, clerks and various office managers.
The system links the U.S. military's 481 medical treatment facilities (MTFs) (including those deployed abroad) to the EHR, ultimately supporting 9.2 million MHS beneficiaries.
In addition, it provided data sharing between the VA and the DoD through a module called BiDirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE).
The Directive focused on and reinforced the need for a centralized, longitudinal patient record for military personnel accessible across the DoD enterprise.
AHLTA has been deployed in Phases, or "Blocks", of increasing functionality that allows the MHS to build a system that is easily adapted to meet evolving requirements and to incorporate the latest available technology.
Block 2 (AHLTA version 3.3) was released in December 2008 and integrated robust dental documentation and optometry orders management capabilities (the Spectacles Request Tracking System, or SRTS).
Complexity with patient names and methods of identifying them with other demographics can lead to duplication, both in a local CHCS system and in the central AHLTA CDR.
There is currently a DHIMS contract aimed at improving the processes and automating the routines to resolve duplicate patients and prevent their creation in the future.
One problem with AHLTA is that many service members data are not captured and recorded (therefore lost), when the patient is referred to outside (non-DOD) civilian providers for care.
This represents an enormous amount of relevant medical data on service members missing from AHLTA and a significant limitation of the system.