Federal Health

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In support of Federal and Military electronic health initiatives, NISC provides a broad range of services to ensure that analog medical data is made readily available in digital form to physicians, providers, researchers and other types of authorized users. Below are examples of our services and how NISC supports our customers in achieving their missions.

Records and Media Digitization

Using specialized equipment and proven processes which have been refined over time, NISC supports the mission of health sector customers by digitizing the most diverse collections of records in industry from an even wider range of media types such as:

• Lantern slides
• Aperture cards
• Large-format material
• Paper records
• Radiographs
• Medical tissue slides
• Mammography films
• Photos/Negatives

NISC, as a "Business Associate" of our health sector customers, employs HIPAA-compliant processes that ensure not only the highest quality digital images, but also the security of the patient identifying information (PII) and other forms of protected health information (PHI) during processing. Although not classified as "secure" by standard security classifications in the government, records which contain PII or PHI are handled with processes that share many characteristics of our secured processing work.

From fragile onion-skin historical documents from a national health museum to documents with mold infiltration from a large medical treatment facility's basement storage area, NISC has a proven history of excellence in retrieving data from the simple to fragile and otherwise unusable media.

Data Augmentation Services

Realizing that scanning alone does not always add appreciably to the downstream use of the data, we employ a wide variety of technologies to augment the utility and exploitation of the scanned image. Based on the customer requirements, customized services, both automated and manual, are employed to increase the readability of the documents. For example, this is especially helpful in processing Civil War era documents that were handwritten on old or fragile paper. Multi-engine Optical Character Recognition (OCR) processes are then employed to turn images of typewritten documents into data files that are fully word and phrase searchable. By using these leading technologies, longitudinal research is more easily accomplished and clinical data can be aggregated to enhance research capabilities.

NISC also employs rules-based technologies to identify and/or extract key data from the previously form-based or free-form document. These technologies allow access to discrete and specific pieces of information without having to physically read the entire document providing for faster research and fewer errors.

Solution Engineering

NISC develops custom applications to support the missions of our health customers. Being a Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Partner, one of only 187 in the country and the only one in West Virginia, NISC takes great pride in our ability to build solutions to our customers application and technology needs. Awarded Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)-Level 2 certification in August of 2007, with pending Level 3 certification award, NISC's Technical Services group uses defined, proven and repeatable processes to develop high-quality solutions that meet the needs of our customers in executing the mission.

Hosting Services

Utilizing robust data center capabilities that reside on a NAVSEA Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) facility just south of Cumberland, Maryland, NISC hosts the electronic records outputted by our digitization work as well as various applications. This data center provides a highly-secured environment that is rich with redundant high-volume communications, redundant power and is outside the 100-mile arc from the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Being on a GOCO, NISC's customers are assured that government data will remain on government property, alleviating many data privacy and physical security concerns. For these reasons and others, many of our customers also look to NISC to provide Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) and disaster recovery solutions for their existing computing operations.

Credentials

• 5 USC § 552a (Records Privacy Act) trained processing staff
• HIPAA trained processing staff
• Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Partner
• Defense Security Services (DSS) Accredited
• Superior rating for three consecutive periods
• 2007 Cogswell Award recipient
• CMMI Level II

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Federal Civilian

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), all benefit from NISC’s innovative information solutions, improving their mission support and harnessing the value of data repositories across their enterprises. NISC provides a wide range of secure enterprise content management (ECM) solutions throughout the information lifecycle from design to operations and maintenance.

Integration of Enterprise IT Systems and Business Applications

NISC’s data solutions are customized to each client’s mission requirements. For the NOAA Climate Data Modernization Program (CDMP), our ongoing scanning, conversion, and secure storage process flow has successfully handled over 57 million records from thousands of sources and dozens of formats to date. We develop advanced solutions through integration of commercial technologies, customized software development, and unique hosting solutions. Our innovative solutions bring order to the enterprise data landscape and enable efficient delivery of service to U. S. citizens.

• We develop solutions using a lifecycle, system-engineering-based approach that includes Business Process Analysis, requirements analysis, design, and architecture to align our technologies with each client’s enterprise architecture framework.
• NISC Information Assurance services build security into our solutions to ensure delivery of compliant, accreditable solutions
• We develop customized records management solutions from market-leading products using advanced, hybrid architectures that comply with NARA and local agency requirements.
• The NISC development team can assure that all client legacy systems and data are integrated into the final ECM solution.
• Database and software development provide solutions that can include development of customized software applications and web-enabled user interfaces to meet unique mission requirements.
• Our solutions provide workflow automation and advanced collaborative services for the enterprise.
• We digitize sensitive, fragile, and historic documents and media for ingest into hosted records management solutions. Supporting NOAA CDMP, our conversion specialists use their experience in formats as varied as outdated storage technology such as tape drives or 200 year old documents to convert weather data from texts pre-dating the American Civil War.

Cyber Security/Information Assurance

NISC’s team of cyber security experts is positioned to support our clients’ mission by delivering strategy, policy development, security engineering, testing, and technical support in the management and execution of cyber and information security programs. NISC builds security into solutions throughout the development lifecycle to produce more secure systems and to enable cost-effective certification and accreditation. NISC offers expertise in cyber security critical infrastructure protection, process controls systems security, software assurance, information systems security, and cyber security standards and best practices.

Hosted Solutions

The NISC Data Centers in Rocket Center, West Virginia are built on a multi-million dollar investment in infrastructure for storage technology, redundant power, telecommunications, network connectivity, and physical security. This allows NISC to securely host unlimited amounts of client data at a secure government facility that is supported by advanced commercial services. We provide conversion, solution development, and other services in these Data Centers. NISC Data Centers are accredited by government agencies and connected to classified and unclassified federal government Wide Area Networks (WANS) to meet each customer’s unique data protection requirements.

Disaster Recovery (DR) and Continuity of Operations (COOP)

NISC provides a full range of COOP services, from initial planning to customization and operation of COOP facilities. Services include mission analysis, development of policies and plans, periodic testing, and training for contingency activities in the Federal government. Our COOP facility services include planning, design, facility customization, and full operations and maintenance support. NISC’s COOP solutions are designed to comply with Federal guidelines and publications, including National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-34 (NIST SP 800.34) - Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology Systems, Federal Continuity Directive 1 (FCD 1) Federal Executive Branch National Continuity Program and Requirements, and National Communications Systems (NCS) Directives.

Founding Member of Microsoft’s Records Management Preferred Partner Program (RM3P)

NISC is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and a founding member of Microsoft’s RM3P program. We are designated as a primary partner for federal SharePoint Solutions and we are the only RM3P Partner that hosts complex SharePoint systems in a secure government facility. Our SharePoint solutions provide a number of enterprise services, including archival of sensitive government data, enterprise collaboration services, records management services, and collaborative working environments that can automate and streamline manual tasks and create searchable data to yield an integrated operating picture.