2018 News

Ellumen Inc. Increases Presence in Medical Logistics Arena with Additional Task Added to Incumbent Contract Award

Ellumen Inc., a trusted provider of professional services and IT solutions, was recently awarded a contract for incumbent work with the Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Health Agency (DHA) for the LogiCole Documentation, Training and Independent Verification and Validation Testing Services (IV&V).  LogiCole represents the third iteration of the DHA integrated suite of business process applications that was initially known as DMLSS (Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support), and more recently DML-ES (Defense Medical Logistics—Enterprise Solution). DML-ES represents the DoD MEDLOG IT Portfolio of capabilities that provided a continuum of medical logistics support for the DHA. LogiCole is the technical refresh of DMLSS, transitioning all MEDLOG applications into a single, web-based application supporting all medical logistics functions in the Military Health System.

A clinician in need of an otoscope to check an ear. A nurse in need of a syringe to deliver medication. A surgeon in need of a sterilized scalpel to perform surgery. All these individuals have something in common – a need for timely medical logistics support to ensure they have the medical materiel they need to do their job in an efficient, effective manner. For the Department of Defense, achieving this can be challenging as they support one of the largest active militaries in the world. So how does a modern military succeed at providing responsive medical logistics for service members stationed around the globe?

Nearly one year ago, Secretary David Shulkin of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that the VA’s electronic health record (EHR) is moving away from custom built software products and development in favor of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions to provide for Veteran healthcare. This shift in the VA’s approach to software development represents a challenging decision: whether to build custom software systems from a general-purpose programming language, or whether to buy existing COTS solutions that seem to fit business needs and user requirements. In fact, many businesses outside government face this same difficult question, whether they are large corporations or small startups. It can be a dilemma to determine which route to choose.

One of the questions I often see directed towards small businesses on new solicitations is: “How do you intend to staff for this project?”

 Answer: We staff exactly the same way that the big guys do it.

I find it odd that small businesses must answer this type of inquiry because nothing separates many of us from big businesses other than perception. We are capable of the same innovation, and use the same processes and industry standards that make some big businesses effective. I say "some" big businesses as all of us have seen the seed sown on shallow ground kind of large business, whose processes and leadership did not grow as fast as the business did.

However, here at Ellumen, we ARE more flexible and in some ways, we offer advantages that some bigger entities cannot. 

We frown on the practice of preassigning characteristics to people without full understanding of the complete picture. It’s equally as harmful to stereotype companies. 

Assuming all small businesses can't achieve the same results as some big businesses hurts the consumer just as much as it hurts small businesses because it leaves them blind to the benefits that mature small companies can offer.

The infographic below represents a few examples of how Ellumen, as a small business, gets results.

1. New Patent Enhances Medical Diagnosis

In August 2015, Ellumen Inc. received a patent entitled “Dielectric Encoding of Medical Images” (Patent No. 9,111,334 B2) awarded to inventors Todd R. McCollough and William J. McCollough. The issued patent was for an innovative method which allowed physicians to easily interpret medical images created using microwave data. The science team is continuing to improve its technology and will be awarded an additional, divisional patent for the enhancement of that same technology which provides a cost-effective technique for encoding dielectric images into familiar forms. The patent involves the conversion of microwave signals to MRI or CT-type medical images familiar to medical professionals and will be awarded on July 11th, 2017 (Patent No. 9,704,275).