Lockheed Martin has announced that it has won two contracts worth a total of $9 million to help the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) advance digital health records and secure health information exchanges. The contracts were awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

The Baltimore, Md.-based company said Wednesday that, under the first contract, Lockheed Martin will create new reference implementation software to support the development, testing, and adoption of future NHIN capabilities. The second contract calls for Lockheed Martin to develop real-world demonstrations and pilots for emergent capabilities.

"These pilots assess not only the technology and standards associated with the Nationwide Health Information Network, but also provide a test-bed to evaluate the interaction of all those elements required for secure interoperability among healthcare stakeholders," Michael Leff, director, Lockheed Martin health information management solutions, said in a statement. "This is the equivalent of taking a new medical therapy out of a controlled clinical trial and assessing the value of that therapy in a real-world setting."

NHIN is the set of services, standards, and policies that enable the secure exchange of health information over the Internet. This health IT initiative is considered a foundational element in realizing the Health Information Technology and Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act) goals of improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare for American citizens.

Lockheed Martin was among the first NHIN contributors as a prime vendor in the Social Security Administration's production prototype with Med Virginia, headquartered in Richmond, Va.

In partnership with key stakeholders, Lockheed Martin helped develop technical specifications and provided health IT consultation for the implementation of the CONNECT gateway, an open source federal health architecture initiative that offers core NHIN interoperability standards. These standards are now the foundation for all future NHIN expansion activity.

More recently, Lockheed Martin assisted the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) on a project that demonstrated how the NHIN can support the secure exchange of standardized health assessments to help improve quality of care for Medicare patients as they transition among healthcare providers and professionals.