Readiness and Care: Accelerating Defense Health Platforms

For Military Health Systems (MHS), the mission mandate is clear: clinical readiness, comprehensive care, and operational support, in garrison and across contested, austere environments. Delivering on that mandate increasingly depends on a simple but critical factor: whether clinical and operational data can move as swiftly as the mission requires.

This dependence is now widely recognized across the defense community. Sixty-three percent of defense agencies identify interoperability as mission-critical, reflecting a broad understanding that effective care and operational coordination rely on frictionless information exchange. Interoperability enables the Defense Health Agency (DHA), service medical departments, and deployed teams to securely access and share patient records, logistics updates, and operational intelligence—regardless of location. 

The survey also underscores the growing role of emerging technologies. Forty-one percent of all public sector respondents rank artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) as the most impactful technologies for enhancing interoperability. This aligns with broader modernization trends emphasizing open, scalable platforms capable of synthesizing and interpreting complex data across hybrid and multi-domain environments.

This white paper analyzes these findings in a defense health context, focusing on modernization challenges, mission impact, workforce readiness, and the operational imperative for an open, secure, AI-enabled health ecosystem.

The Weight of Legacy Systems

Defense health organizations must navigate constrained budgets, aging infrastructure, and the complexities of maintaining global medical operations. These realities shape—and in some cases limit—their ability to adopt next-generation capabilities.

Sixty percent of defense respondents cite budget as their primary barrier to AI implementation, making funding the single largest inhibitor to modernization. This challenge is compounded by the long lifecycle of defense health applications, which often demand costly sustainment and modernization simultaneously. Funding is a persistent challenge across government entities, but without appropriate investments, agencies risk being left behind. In addition, security and privacy concerns, are always top of mind. Fifty-two percent of defense respondents identify these issues as a top challenge, reflecting the intricate requirements of operating health systems across multiple networks, classification levels, and operational theaters. 

Respondents also identify pronounced technical barriers; legacy system integration is the leading technical challenge across the public sector, affecting six in ten respondents across all levels of government. Defense agencies experience these constraints acutely through siloed Electronic Health Record systems, disconnected theater medical applications, and fragmented logistics platforms. These systems are mission-essential but not naturally interoperable, making modernization both necessary and difficult.

Defense health modernization models increasingly emphasize open architectures, container-based workloads, and secure API-driven data exchange—approaches that ease integration burdens and reduce long-term technical debt while enabling rapid capability deployment. 

The Intelligence Advantage

The defense community increasingly recognizes AI/ML as a catalyst for accelerating clinical and operational decision cycles. These technologies align with broader modernization priorities emphasizing data-driven insight, automated analysis, and real-time decision support. When asked about AI’s impact in healthcare IT, nearly a quarter (24%) of defense respondents cite faster decision-making as the top benefit. In operational environments—where seconds influence survivability and mission success—AI-enabled triage, diagnostics, and information synthesis can materially improve outcomes.

Efficiency gains, such as automated documentation, predictive maintenance, and enhanced logistics forecasting, rank among the top benefits cited across all public sector respondents. These are foundational to the concept of decision advantage: reducing cognitive burden, speeding workflows, and enabling more informed action at every echelon.

Yet the survey also reveals significant readiness gaps. Forty-two percent of defense respondents cite a lack of internal expertise as a major barrier to AI adoption. This highlights the need for AI-aware clinicians, administrators, cybersecurity teams, and data stewards—groups that must be equipped to safely govern, deploy, and audit AI capabilities. 

Addressing the Health IT Workforce Gap

This readiness gap spotlights the crucial interplay between technology modernization and workforce modernization. The defense health workforce requires the tools, training, and expertise to integrate AI and interoperable systems with confidence and mission alignment.

The survey highlights three priority areas:

• Training and workforce development (36%): Defense clinicians and IT teams need structured, ongoing programs that build AI fluency, data literacy, and operational expertise.
• Funding for workforce and capability development (26%): Budget constraints affect not only technology acquisition but the institutional capacity required to sustain and govern new tools.
• Technical assistance and implementation guidance (24%): defense health organizations seek clear, practical frameworks for deploying secure AI, integrating legacy systems, and modernizing data governance.

Investing in modern AI-integrated cloud ecosystems can also provide these agencies with secure pathways to operationalize AI without compromising mission assurance. In short, AI tools for an AI-savvy workforce is not only a strategic imperative – it will save lives.

Strategic Recommendations

To move from recognizing the challenge to achieving clear operational and clinical advantage, defense health agencies must pursue a strategy that is AI-First, secure, and open.

• Build on an open, secure ecosystem: Prioritize an architecture that integrates seamlessly across disparate Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and works across security enclaves, ensuring patient data follows the service member wherever they operate.
• Invest in clinical decision advantage, not just infrastructure: Prioritize the use of intelligent systems to achieve core clinical goals. Deploy advanced analytics and AI platforms that can synthesize vast, disparate clinical data streams for predictive health and optimized medical logistics.
• Solve the budget challenge through optimized platforms: Address the primary barrier of funding by choosing a full-stack technology partner that offers solutions engineered for operational efficiency and cost optimization across the entire data lifecycle.
• Accelerate workforce enablement and expertise: Meet the high demand for training and technical assistance by engaging with a partner who can provide the necessary clinical and technical domain knowledge to securely govern and exploit AI at the point of care.

A Connected Future

Defense health stands at a critical inflection point where connected clinical systems and AI-driven insights can transform readiness and care delivery. The most successful defense health systems will be those that pair modern platforms with sustained investment in people, training, and mission-aligned governance.  Defense agencies ready to take the next step will be best positioned to design a future of enduring clinical and operational advantage.

Delivering connected, intelligent care is not only to strengthen readiness or to meet mandates. It is, at a fundamental level, a promise to those who serve – that agencies will leverage the power of what is next to elevate care and save lives.

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