Harris wins 2 contracts for DOD, VA eye injuries registry

Harris Corp. will help improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of eye-related injuries and diseases affecting service members and veterans under a pair of contracts worth a total of $17.1 million.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 directed the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments "to establish a center of excellence in the prevention, diagnosis, mitigation, treatment, and rehabilitation of military eye injuries," a Nov. 29 Harris announcement explained.

For the past year, Harris has worked with the resulting Vision Center of Excellence and Defense Health Information Management System to design, develop and deploy a Defense and Veterans Eye Injury and Vision Registry for recording occurrences, treatments and outcomes of military eye-related injuries.

Harris completed the development phase six months ahead of the government’s schedule and the software was ranked “world class” after the code quality reviews resulted in an error density of only .08 percent, the announcement said.

As a result, under the first new contract, worth $2.8 million, Harris will operate, maintain and enhance the registry for three years, working as a subcontractor to Pelatron Inc.

Under the second contract, a five-year $ 14.3 million award, Harris will populate the registry with information from medical records and other documentation for all eye injuries sustained by service members.

DOD and VA medical researchers will mine this massive dataset for information on care and outcomes that will be used to improve eye-injury treatment protocols on and off the battlefield.

Harris Corp., of Melbourne, Fla., ranks No. 13 on Washington Technology’s 2011 Top 100 list of the largest federal government contractors.