Australia's Department of Defence will replace its EMIS-based primary care clinical information system in the first stage of the massive JP2060 Health Knowledge Management project, which will eventually see the defence force build a system for deployed and garrison staff that reaches at least level five on the HIMSS EMR adoption model, at an expected price tag of between $150 and $350 million.

Defence plans to use a systems integrator from a panel of 28 multinationals to subcontract medical software vendors for the project's requirements, beginning with an off-the-shelf primary care medical record and practice management system and eventually building a full HKM solution for both the garrison and deployed environments.

The first phase of project will see the existing Defence eHealth System (DeHS), which uses the UK's EMIS practice management system and was rolled out by DXC Technology in 2014 with a $56 million budget, replaced. Defence says that system is already reaching the end of its technical life.