Chantilly, Virginia (November 2017) – Edmond Scientific Company (ESC) received an award for research and development (R&D) of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Enhanced/Explosive (CBRNE) defense systems, capabilities, equipment, supplies and material; and development and production of future CBRNE defense capabilities. The Joint Enterprise Research, Development, Acquisition and Production/Procurement (JE-RDAP) contract covers all phases of DOD CBRNE defensive systems development, from Materiel Development Decision (MDD) through Materiel Solution Analysis Phase, Technical Maturation/Risk Reduction (TMRR) Phase, Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) Phase, and the Production and Deployment (P&D) Phase.  The contract also covers not just research, design, development, and manufacture of these systems, but integration of systems/capabilities with both CBRNE and non-CBRNE systems and information systems.

Edmond Scientific’s JE-RDAP award will extend our expertise in:

• Conducting basic and applied R&D in CBRN Medical Countermeasure Systems (MCMs) to include biomarker, biological identification, and FDA-approved diagnostic systems,
• CBRNE information systems including providing an “end-to-end”, easily accessible
  set of CBRN enterprise capabilities
• Providing subject matter expertise (SME) in regulatory affairs supporting MCM development pathways and FDA regulatory policy
• Providing scientific support and SME in pre-clinical support of early stage drug development products optimized through Phase 1 for antimicrobials including nontraditional antimicrobial approaches to include:
  • Vaccine and MCM candidates
  • Animal models
  • Assay development and validation; product potency, stability, immunogenicity testing in translational and clinical trials
  • Safety and efficacy evaluation of vaccines
  • Supporting nonclinical product development
• Providing SME in pharmaceutical manufacturing, including scale-up manufacturing of an R&D program for a MCM in order to meet the operational requirements of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD)
• Providing scientific support and SME in technology transfer and partnering with industry

For more information, please contact us.  For scientific staff, please send your resume through our career portal.

Fairfax Virginia–August 2017

ESC has released the latest version of its Security Labeling Service (SLS) as a cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) application for use by Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), Network Providers, and other Covered Entities to detect and protect sensitive substance abuse, mental health, and infectious disease information–known as 42 CFR Part 2 data. The cloud-based SLS receives CDAs, CCDAs, and HL7v2 records, detects sensitive data in the structured and unstructured data fields, and returns either the results to the sender or a transformed record for proper processing according to HL7 standards and specifications.

The result is that HIEs and other entities can now accept and process sensitive Part 2 records knowing that the information is identified and protected. Data protections can be implemented either at the document level with a high-water mark, or at the data element level using masking or redaction per the organizational policies of the senders and recipients. The ESC business model allows transactional billing using a simple credit card.

For more information, integration questions using our APIs, or a demonstration, please contact us at 703-955-7722.

June 2017 – Edmond Scientific Company (ESC) is the recipient of a 2017 Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) Innovation Award for its role in advancing HIT. The FedHealthIT Innovation Awards, held on June 6th, comprised more than 250 federal health leaders from government and industry to recognize 25 of the top federal health programs and teams behind innovation efforts at Veterans Affairs, Military Health, Health and Human Services, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Nominated and chosen by their peers, the awardees stand out based on their willingness to take on achievable risk, and more importantly, to deliver real results in support of their mission.

ESC won the award based upon its work leading research and development (R&D) activities in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Emerging Health Technology Advancement Center (EHTAC). EHTAC evaluates and advances emerging technologies for application in the VA to improve clinical outcomes, efficiency, performance, decision-making, and security and privacy. EHTAC is a lab environment used to conduct investigations of emerging technologies or trends expected to mature within a 5-year window. A key focus is leading VA interoperability pilots and demonstrations. Through EHTAC, ESC has led the development and transition of technologies into enterprise capabilities in the VA for such capabilities as enabling patient choice and control over the sharing of their health data through the enforcement of consent, runtime data segmentation and protection of structured and unstructured sensitive information in documents and data flows, data tagging capabilities to map ontologies to clinical decision making systems, advancement of role-based and attribute-based access control architectures to maximize capabilities of enterprise commercial security products purchased by the VA, and federated security architectures that provide for the synchronized application of access control rules and policies across organizational boundaries and disparate systems and protocols. In short, ESC R&D through EHTAC has led to greater empowerment and choice for veterans as patients over their care, and has provided greater and finer privacy and protection of their information in a large health enterprise such as the VA, without impeding information sharing and speed of access needed to deliver care.

Baltimore, MD — Edmond Scientific Company (ESC) researchers will present their latest findings to the scientific community, and shared experiences with their colleagues at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology (SOT)  in Baltimore in March 2017.

Founded in 1961, the Society of Toxicology (SOT) is a professional and scholarly organization of scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry representing the great variety of scientists who practice toxicology in the US and abroad. The Society’s mission is to create a safer and healthier world by advancing the science and increasing the impact of toxicology.

ESC supported research in neurodegenerative disorders and injury, and integrative physiology and behavior.  ESC research reported on the effects of toxic exposure in adult and aged populations on seizure activity and neuronal loss, and related it to the loss of hippocampal interneurons and reduced inhibition which may lead to increased susceptibility to the development of seizures in an aged population.  Other research related to researching better treatments against pharmaco-resistant seizures using combinations of drugs aimed at reversing the effects of maladaptive receptor trafficking.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the research was performed to reduce the extensive neuropathology and long-term performance deficits of uncontrolled seizures as a result of exposure to toxic Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents (CWNAs).  However, the research also has direct relevance to other aged-related medical research areas that focus on neuronal loss and neurotoxicity due to natural and artificial causes.

The U.S. Army Public Health Center (USAPHC) manages the full spectrum of activities and programs related to health promotion, wellness, behavioral health, and the prevention of disease, injury, and disability of Soldiers and military retirees, their Families, and Department of the Army civilian employees. ESC supports USAPHC across five (5) portfolios: Army Health Promotion and Wellness, Clinical Public Health & Epidemiology, Public Health Information, Health Risk Management, and Basic and Applied Research. ESC provides:

• Program Managers/Project Officers/Trainers to support Health Promotion and Wellness Operations outreach activities
• Statisticians/Applied Economists for program/project evaluation, applied research, statistical and data analysis support
• Financial and Management Analysts for budgetary support

As part of this effort, ESC devised and implemented health promotion strategies and oversight of Army Health Promotion Operations.  ESC provided technical assistance and training (TA/T), and program management support for health promotion strategies in support of Army Health Promotion and Wellness (HPW) and Ready and resilient (R2) operations.  In this role, we helped develop policy guidance relating to health risk, behavioral health strategies, and executed outreach strategies and programs to Soldiers and military retirees, their Families, and Department of the Army civilian employees.

For more information or if you would like to become a part of public and behavioral health research and analysis activities, contact careers@edmondsci.com

November 2016, San Diego — Edmond Scientific Company (ESC) researchers presented their latest findings to the scientific community, and shared experiences with their colleagues at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in San Diego.  SfN’s goal is to advance the shared understanding of the brain and nervous system, and the purpose of the annual SfN meeting is to share research; learn new techniques, theories, and other efforts that could be applied to ESC supported research in neurodegenerative disorders and injury, and integrative physiology and behavior.  ESC supported research was presented during on the topics of “Age-dependent susceptibility to seizure and neuronal loss” and “Anticonvulsant, antiepileptic and neuroprotective effects of ketamine, valproate and midazolam polytherapy”.  The first topic addresses the increased susceptibility of the aged population (65 years and older) to status epilepticus (SE) and recurrent seizure activity, as well as the neuropathological underpinnings of this increased vulnerability.  ESC research reported on the effects of toxic exposure in adult and aged populations on seizure activity and neuronal loss, and related it to the loss of hippocampal interneurons and reduced inhibition which may lead to increased susceptibility to the development of seizures in an aged population.  The second topic related to researching better treatments against pharmaco-resistant seizures using combinations of drugs aimed at reversing the effects of maladaptive receptor trafficking.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the research was performed under contract to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD) to reduce the extensive neuropathology and long-term performance deficits of uncontrolled seizures as a result of exposure to toxic Chemical Warfare Nerve Agents (CWNAs).  However, the research also has direct relevance to other aged-related medical research areas that focus on neuronal loss and neurotoxicity due to natural and artificial causes.

“Hello. This is John from the ride service. Which hospital is your destination and what is your pickup location.”

These were the words which greeted every caller during the severe winter storm afflicting Northern Virginia from January 22-24, 2016 which dumped three feet of snow in 36 hours.  The weather forced Emergency Room and other hospital staff to remain at the hospital until relief shifts could arrive, and stranded discharged patients who arrived by ambulance since no taxis or ride services were able to operate.

During the height of the storm, which during Saturday afternoon and evening delivered 35 mph winds and 1-2 inches of snow per hour, and for the following days until traditional ride services could operate on the roads, Edmond Scientific provided snow emergency ride services to hospital staff and patients.  Edmond Scientific ride services supported INOVA Emergency Access in Fairfax and the Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center Complex, transporting patients home and hospital staff to and from their homes, often which were on unplowed streets.  In all, the Edmond Scientific driver logged more than 500 miles averaging about 1.5 hours per trip through the storm, and provided services from 5:30 AM through 12 PM for nearly three days.

Little did any of the riders know that the driver was none other than Edmond Scientific President and CEO John Pitale, and his trusty sidekick and son Ivan (needed for help in digging the ruggedized Jeep out when it was inevitably stuck) taking a break from running the company and leaving the warmth of home and family to provide this needed service.

As identity management and authorization technologies evolve, organizations struggle to determine how to modernize and remain interoperable within their business units or across divisions. Implementing or modernizing to newer security protocols and technologies such as SAML, OAuth, OpenID from legacy technologies can render authentication and authorization systems incompatible, and make it difficult to enforce policies uniformly. Migrating to uniform enterprise identity and access management technologies can be disruptive and complex.

Edmond Scientific has developed a complete and comprehensive Identity Management and Authorization solution that can support both legacy and modern applications, and provide a single service for all identity and access management needs across the enterprise. At the core of this resides Edmond’s patented Hybrid Authorization Control System (H-ACS) which integrates and harmonizes, in a single solution, a complete set of identity and authorization management technologies including OAuth, OpenID Connect, User-Managed Authorization (UMA), XACML, and SAML together with the interconnecting protocols and required client-side connectors. This solution enables a hybrid identity and authorization ecosystem in which both traditional and modern services can coexist and interact.  For cross-domain information exchange and interoperability, it enables a continuous security fabric utilizing identity management and authentication mechanisms in any protocol, without the need to convert legacy systems or create joint user directories.

Further information on related Edmond Scientific services may be found in NextGen Authorization Services.

Falls Church, Virginia

Edmond Scientific Company (ESC) was awarded a contract to support the Solution Delivery Division (SDD) Program Executive Office (PEO) at the Defense Health Agency (DHA) to manage a comprehensive Quality System and Business Process Improvement (BPI) effort.  SDD manages the acquisition, delivery, integration, and sustainment of information technology products and solutions throughout the Military Health System to include clinical, resource management, logistics, and health information systems.

ESC manages all Quality Assurance/Process Improvement processes by providing Government Program and Product Managers with a quality management approach that ensures repeatable processes, identifies opportunities for improvement, and provides a structured and measurable approach from planning through operations.  ESC efforts also include conducting a comprehensive Risk Management program to include identifying, capturing, and providing mitigation plans for major program and contract risks; a Measurement and Analysis (M&A) and Earned Value Management (EVM) program to include tracking and reporting of product and organization progress, trends, problems, and costs; and an Integration Management effort that includes schedule management and coordination across the more than thirty independent and cross-dependent systems.

ESC was selected based upon our strength in applying our experience and ability to bring innovation to Quality Assurance (QA) and Process/Performance Improvement programs.  By leveraging our experience implementing and managing QA, CMMI and ISO 9001/20000 programs along with a technical staff driven by a service-oriented philosophy, we are able to provide benefit through long-term, sustained improvements to organizational performance.  For SDD, ESC maintains process conformance and quality measurement across the three tiers of organization, product, and program level reporting and includes risk and schedule management to ensure work product completion throughout the organization.  ESC manages and executes quality processes and measurement across various functional areas to include:

• Business Infrastructure
• Acquisition Management
• Project Management
• Requirements Management and Development
• Acquisition
• Test and Evaluation
• Production and Agile Development
• Configuration Management
• Risk and Schedule Management
• Information Assurance
• Earned Value Measurement, Audit and Analysis
• Engineering
• Training