CEIS is being acquired for the MHS by ASD(HA), with the Army Surgeon General designated as Executive Agent. The new system was originally intended to subsume the functionalities of eight legacy systems. Seven of these systems have already been turned off, and now CEIS has become the target system for the migration of all systems within the Executive Information/Decision Support area of the MHS. It is considered critical to the effective management of DoD's TRICARE program.

A Government Installation and Acceptance Test (GIAT) was conducted in June 1997. This was a two-phase, combined DT/OT effort. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), the independent OTA, participated in the first phase of the GIAT, observing DT&E and gathering selected information for assessment. ATEC then conducted a dedicated OT in June and July 1997, with most of the data provided by the users. During this phase, ATEC collected operational data at 14 test sites and conducted user desk audits for qualitative data. ATEC also evaluated the quality of system manuals and documents.

Although CEIS has undergone several incremental enhancements since 1997, it has not changed substantially. During this period, ATEC continuously evaluated the system and performed risk assessments, which determined that full OT&E would not be required until the next major release, CEIS 2.0. Development of CEIS 2.0, however, was delayed indefinitely by problems associated with creating an Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to replace the regional data bases. A single EDW could not be designed to provide reliable data, and a new system architecture had to be developed.

In June 2000, AEC and the U.S. Army Medical Department Board (AMEDDBD) performed an OA of the incremental release CEIS 1.10. This is an enhancement known as the All-Region Server (ARS) Bridge, which provides a trans-regional aggregate view of cost and treatment data to the top three levels of users. ATEC and AMEDDBD conducted the OA in Falls Church, VA, and concluded that the ARS Bridge was operationally effective, but not operationally suitable due to training deficiencies. DOT&E concurred. Recommendations were provided to improve the web-based training and on-line manuals.

The 1997 IOT&E was very positive for an emerging system. Combined DT/OT proved to be a very effective testing methodology for CEIS, as it can be for other automated information systems. 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 combined DT/OT, the cost of testing (both dollars and people) was significantly lower than it might have been.

Despite the early success of CEIS 1.0, development of CEIS 2.0 did not go as planned because of deficient system architectural design and unsettled functional requirements. The program is now being re-baselined, and a new TEMP will be required. Nevertheless, the same combined DT/OT testing methodology that worked well with Version 1.0 and its enhancements should be effective with Version 2.0 as well.