Defense's Acquisition of the Composite Health Care System

GAO commented on the Department of Defense's (DOD) ongoing efforts to acquire and test the Composite Health Care System (CHCS), focusing on the planned test schedule, estimated benefits, life-cycle costs, and current funding. GAO noted that: (1) DOD would not develop and deploy about 38 percent of CHCS software by the planned completion date; (2) DOD officials estimated that the software would provide about 87 percent of projected benefits and about 79 percent of the expected high-priority capabilities; (3) DOD reduced performance and evaluation time from 8 months to 4 to 6 months, which could increase risk; (4) DOD projected that CHCS would result in benefits of over $2 billion because of improved medical services, but it did not consider certain service restrictions; (5) DOD requested that Congress lift a ceiling of $1.1 billion for CHCS life-cycle costs; (6) the congressionally approved funding level was about $200 million less than DOD needed to fully deploy CHCS; and (7) the Army and the Navy reprogrammed CHCS funds to other areas.