4 Things Nurses Need to Know about MC4
May 8, 2012 posted by Leann Micheals
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Leann Micheals, MC4's clinical applications consultant since 2004, is a nurse practitioner. She travels to theater and garrison training events to help medical personnel use MC4 systems.
There
are four things that all nurses who use the MC4 system need to know.
All
patient care, inpatient care and short term problems such as viral illnesses, should
be documented in the MC4 system. Information documented in the EMR system will
become part of the Soldier’s permanent medical record. This allows a complete
past medical picture to be viewable for yourself and any other medical
personnel.
AHLTA-T is used by
nurses in outpatient clinics, the ER and some level II holding facilities. This
application is organized in the subjective/objective and assessment/plan (SOAP)
format and is fairly easy to use. At level III’s, TC2 is used for documenting
inpatient care. This application is almost the same as Composite Health Care
System (CHCS) with the same flow and navigation. In theater, however; TC2 is
used to document the complete medical record, which is different than how CHCS
is used in garrison.
The
applications within the MC4 EMR system are not nurse-friendly and require some workarounds.
Nursing typically documents in a flow sheet format and these are not available
in the system.
There
are AHLTA-T templates/AIM forms and TC2 templates that will help in
mimicking a nursing documentation work flow. The TC2 templates replicate the
flow sheets nurses are comfortable using. The templates/AIM forms for AHLTA-T
pull all the nursing documentation together in an easy to use format, but do
not have a flow sheet look and feel.
I recommend reading the Tips and FAQs on
AHLTA-T and TC2 for more information.
MC4
is always looking for feedback and nursing advocates within the military
nursing community that affect change and improve the system from a nursing
perspective. If you have feedback to share and/or are willing to be an advocate,
please contact the MC4 Clinical
Operations Office.
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