NDAA Interagency Image Sharing

The El Paso Interagency Imaging project is a joint Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) initiative to design, develop and implement bi-directional medical image sharing capability between the two agencies. The scope of this task entails demonstrating the successful first-time bi-directional image data sharing between the DINPACS systems at William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC) and the VistA Imaging/Remote Image view stations at the VA El Paso HCS. In support of this important initiative, CPS provides full life-cycle development services to include requirements analysis, architecture analysis and implementation, software engineering, program management, metrics capture and analysis, performance analysis and testing. CPS successful performance under this contract resulted in the development of the PACS Integrator which, under a modification to this contract, is presently being deployed by CPS to multiple DoD and VA sites. CPS has performed software development with Microsoft C#.Net using Microsoft best practices and industry standard object oriented patterns and techniques.

CPS has been intimately involved with the El Paso Imaging Program since inception. At early stages, CPS engineers worked with DoD and VA stakeholders to conduct a gap and requirements analysis in order to develop a detailed Systems Requirement Specification and System Design Document. The resulting design specified a new infrastructure and software that would ensure reliable interoperability and data sharing between the VAs Vista Imaging System, existing and proposed COTS vendor solutions, and the current DoD Image viewing environment. CPS led multiple discovery, analysis, requirements and system design efforts in support of this initiative. As part of the design, CPS worked with a multi-agency Integrated Product Team (IPT) to finalize the concept of operations and architecture for the image data-sharing prototype. The resultant architecture was open, flexible and extensible to an enterprise solution when fully developed within the dual agency environment. CPS also developed the CONOPS and Architecture diagrams and incorporated into the System Design Document. In addition, CPS worked with the IPT members to develop meaningful metrics to measure project success and technical performance. These metrics included response times, image resolution and quality, internal system process segmentation and performance, and usability factors. CPS established user criteria that allowed the creation of software that accounted for human factors and preferences that were important to clinical staff using the prototype. Transfer and display characteristics were engineered to the fastest possible rate and the capture of applicable metrics were identified and documented.

CPS has supported all facets of software engineering services under the El Paso imaging project, to include software development, code reviews, product demonstrations and support for bug fixes and requests for enhancements from the field. CPS engineers helped develop interagency test plans and scripts for internal system testing and performance monitoring and developed and proposed an end-to-end test plan in conjunction with the IPT members and managing stakeholders. This plan identified test participants, data, locations, environments, and general test methodology for technical and functional testing. CPS staff continues to monitor the daily event logs in order to perform necessary diagnostic troubleshooting on both the network and system domains CPS uses automated tools such as Windows Event Viewer, Windows Performance Monitor, Performance Optimizer; as well as custom developed tools to monitor the Windows based systems. These automated tools monitor system resources 24 hours a day and include thresholds for the various key components.