Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
FY97 Annual Report

CORPORATE EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM (CEIS)

	ASD(HA) ACAT IAM Program 600 systems Total program cost (TY$) $316M Average unit cost (TY$) $0.5M Life cycle cost (TY$) $410M Full-rate production (IOC) 4QFY97 Prime Contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Electronic Data Systems (EDS)

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION & CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT VISION 2010

CEIS is a Tri-Service system for integrating executive information support across the Military Health Services System (MHSS). The system is intended to support the clinical, financial, and management needs of medical treatment facilities (MTFs), Tri-Service Health Care (TRICARE) Lead Agents (LAs), the three Military Departments (MILDEPs), and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) [OASD(HA)]. CEIS integrates two commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) information management systems: QUANTUM, an Executive Information System (EIS), and TRENDSTAR, a Decision Support System (DSS). The EIS offers a top-down view of the health care enterprise, integrating data from many sources, producing reports, and linking decision makers. The DSS provides a single source of integrated, patient-level information to the health care enterprise, incorporating clinical, financial, and administrative data. There is a large active user community (over 600 users) within DoD, with user organizations ranging from small community hospitals to multi-facility health care enterprises.

CEIS is based on a distributed client-server processing architecture built around 12 TRICARE regional databases that are fed by selected central databases and by databases located at the MTFs. Each LA regional database receives source data from the region's MTF data management servers and from a corporate server at Fort Detrick, Maryland. This gives each MTF immediate access both to its own patient level data and to consolidated data at the region, and fosters the sharing of data between MTFs. The CEIS architecture includes two major groups of servers: (1) "Data Warehouses" of distributed Integrated Database (IDB) servers housing open repositories of MHSS data integrated from major MHSS operational AISs, and (2) "Data Marts" of distributed EIS/DSS servers housing patient-level care data and pre-approved information products that evaluate and assist in improving the MHSS enterprise.

The core of the CEIS architecture is an open relational database management system (RDBMS) that fuses information into a single authoritative and consistent source. CEIS does not manufacture data; it extracts "evaluation" data from source data collection systems (SDCSs), which are the operational AISs, and stores and integrates it in the Data Warehouse. Some of the SDCS feeds are local to the individual MTFs, while others are centralized systems that serve multiple locations. CEIS supports JV2010 by providing health care managers and providers the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of medical information. It enhances information superiority by providing decision makers with accurate information in a timely manner, allowing them to be more efficient in protecting lives and resources.

CEIS is being acquired for the MHSS by the OASD(HA). The Army Surgeon General was designated the Executive Agent for CEIS acquisition in June 1995, but the system was not brought under MAISRC oversight until late in 1996. By that time, the MILDEPs had already made a $100 million investment in the program. About $7 million in hardware had been purchased, much of which had been deployed to beta test sites.

CEIS will build upon and replace eight legacy systems that will be maintained until their "valued" functionality has been incorporated and CEIS is fully fielded. The system will eventually be deployed to about 150 locations. It is considered to be critical to the effective management of DoD's revolutionary new TRICARE program, which has been implemented in only a few regions thus far, but will soon be implemented in all of them.

The T&E of CEIS was conducted in compliance with the TEMP approved by DOT&E on June 10, 1997. A Government Installation and Acceptance Test (GIAT) was conducted in June 1997. The GIAT was a two-phase, combined developmental and operational testing (DT/OT) effort. The OT phase was conducted by OPTEC, the independent OTA, during the period June 27 through July 1, with most of the data collected by the system's users. OPTEC also participated in the first phase of the GIAT, observing the DT&E and gathering selected information for assessment. The general concept during the dedicated OT period was for users at 14 test locations to submit operational data electronically or manually to OPTEC that reflected use of CEIS during normal, "live" operations. OPTEC also conducted user desk audits at the test locations to obtain qualitative data. Additionally, OPTEC evaluated selected data, documents, and reports, as well as assessments by other agencies.

The GIAT results (both OT and DT) were unusually positive for an emerging system. CEIS Version 0.3 is operationally effective, operationally suitable, and survivable. The system has achieved the mission performance and interoperability requirements documented in the Operational Requirements Document (ORD), and no suitability area points to an effectiveness deficiency. The system satisfies the requirements in the ORD that apply to the current increment for training, documentation, user friendliness, help features, reliability, maintainability, infrastructure, communications, and logistics requirements. The program has an acceptable standards profile and a working set of development metrics. CEIS meets the system-level security requirements in the ORD and has satisfied the prerequisites to receive a security accreditation for fielding this increment. There are adequate means to protect continuity of operations. CEIS enjoys a high level of support from its users. There appears to be little or no risk in immediately deploying the current software version to all TRICARE regions.

Combined DT/OT can be a very effective testing methodology for some AIS. For a system like CEIS, in which both DT and OT took place at a relatively large number of test sites (14 MTFs), much of the DT data could also be used to evaluate performance in the operational environment, particularly since it was supplemented by information obtained directly from the users. In the case of CEIS, it was possible to obtain most of the quantitative data electronically, and with DT and OT combined, the cost of testing (both dollars and people) was significantly less than it otherwise would have been.