The hospital at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, in June 2023. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)
The online military medical records system, MHS Genesis, was experiencing “intermittent network outages” Tuesday, according to the Defense Health Agency.
Without Genesis, patients in the military health care system cannot schedule appointments or lab tests or fill prescriptions online, among other services.
“The problem has been identified, and we are currently working to restore connectivity,” DHA announced on its official Facebook page around 8 a.m. Tuesday in Japan.
The post did not identify the nature of the problem, and a DHA representative did not respond to an email from Stars and Stripes seeking further comment after hours in Hawaii.
Service was restored around noon for the hospital at Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo, according to a post on the hospital’s official Facebook page. Other facilities in Japan reported continued outages on their pages.
DHA recently completed global installation of the digital recordkeeping and appointment system with its implementation at U.S. military hospitals and clinics across the Indo-Pacific.
Bases in Japan reported intermittent or no service from Genesis beginning around 9 a.m. Tuesday into the afternoon.
Naval Hospital Okinawa reported “widespread system outages” and service limited to urgent and emergency patients, according to a Tuesday morning Facebook post.
At Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, the 374th Medical Group also reported an “enterprise-wide” Genesis outage at around 9 a.m.
“The Defense Health Agency is experiencing an enterprise-wide MHS GENESIS outage, with no estimated time of fix,” read a post on the group’s Facebook page.
“Please keep an eye out for further announcements from the 374th Medical Group,” the post states.
The 673rd Medical Group at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, reported its Genesis network access restored after about seven hours Monday, according to a post on its official Facebook page.
A survey of Facebook pages for health care providers at other bases in the United States, Germany and South Korea showed no posting regarding a Genesis outage.
MHS Genesis was developed as a “state-of-the-market electronic health record system” for the Military Health System under a $4.3 billion contract signed in 2015 with Leidos Partnership for Defense Health. The partnership includes the Leidos, Accenture, Oracle and Henry Schein One corporations.
The system’s rollout was delayed while the Defense Department reviewed and tested it for functionality and cybersecurity, according to a November 2016 health.mil newsletter, The Scope.
Installation of MHS Genesis at U.S. military bases worldwide concluded in mid-January at bases on Guam.
However, the appointment function of the Genesis online patient portal was disabled at some military health care facilities because it allowed users worldwide to mistakenly make appointments at the wrong clinics, overwhelming personnel who had to review and erase those appointments.
A cyberattack last week on Change Healthcare, the nation’s largest commercial prescription processor, had a follow-on effect of also crippling MHS Genesis pharmacy services, according to DHA.
