The Gateway

Field training at one of the Army's combat training centers is typically the last opportunity for medical personnel to train on MC4 systems prior to deployment. That's why our technical support teams have been providing over-the-shoulder instruction at these venues. In November, we extended our training arm through a train-the-trainer initiative at the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, Calif.

MC4 fully-trained the 11th Armored Calvary Regiment's observer-controllers and trainers (OC/Ts), known as the "Goldminers." They now understand how to set up and use MC4 systems as well as our own technical support teams. The Goldminers can offer well-informed guidance for digital patient documentation and supply management during every training event at NTC, without our assistance.

The Goldminers are also exploring the garrison use of MC4 in their local clinic to eliminate the use of paper records. They're also updating the training orders for units rotating through NTC. Once complete, units will be required to bring their authorized MC4 systems to NTC and utilize the equipment during field exercises.

This is a great example of a unit taking ownership of the EMR mission. In turn, the Goldminers are working hard to ensure deployable medical personnel are better prepared to use MC4 systems in theater.

Hooah!

Since the formation of the MC4 Clinical Operations Office in September, the U.S.-based team has been a tremendous resource for medical units throughout the world. This month, the addition of retired Col. Ken Meade, M.D., chief of MC4’s European and Far East clinical operations, extends the team’s global presence.

Located in Germany, Dr. Meade will leverage his theater experience in his new role. He’ll advise the leadership at level III facilities, as well as other clinical personnel, of best business practices to optimize their use of MC4 systems.

Prior to joining MC4, Dr. Meade’s previous positions include the DCCS for the 212th Combat Support Hospital, medical director for the Landstuhl Army Medical Clinics, the European Regional Medical Command consultant for telemedicine, as well as the commander of the 160th Forward Surgical Team. He was also the theater surgical consultant and medical advisor for Task Force 62 in 2008. In this role, he was instrumental in developing the operational order requiring units to digitally chart care via MC4.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Meade to the team. He and the entire Clin Ops team can be reached at mc4.clinops@us.army.mil.

As we strive for greater MC4 system use in training exercises, we realize that we need to make technology improvements to our training systems. We’ve been fat-fingering medical encounters and medical supply requisitions into MC4 to support training scenarios. While labor intensive and time-consuming, we’ve been better preparing medical staff, logisticians and systems administrators to use MC4.

The missing benefactors of this "train as you fight" model have been commanders and their staffs. Their knowledge, skills and ability to use MC4 for medical command and control (C2) during training exercises have suffered. Training data doesn’t feed into their surveillance tool—MSAT (formerly known as JMeWS).

To fix this shortfall, we’ve teamed up with University XXI, part of the Institute for Advanced Technology at The University of Texas at Austin, and Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI). The result is the development of a simulation server and interface that will automatically populate patient data in AHLTA-T that feeds into MSAT. Later this month, we’re taking our stand-alone simulation medical data server (SMDS), our new interim simulation tool, to Fort Bragg, N.C., to test during Task Force 44’s culminating training event. This will serve as a test bed and the results will be used to begin building the end product.

To expand the use of our interim simulation tool, we’re partnering with the National Simulation Center’s Logistics Exercise and Simulation Directorate at Fort Lee, Va. The goal is to take our stand-alone SMDS and incorporate it into the Joint Deployment Land Component Constructive Training Capability (JLCCTC) simulation driver, specifically the Joint Deployment Logistics Model (JDLM) tool. The JDLM is currently used as the exercise simulation driver for several Army and joint service exercises. Once in place, medical commanders and staffs will have a robust medical C2 training simulation tool.

In the spring, we’ll be meeting with leadership of the Eighth Army in South Korea. We’ll present the results from the exercise at Fort Bragg and discuss the possibility to test the JDLM interface during Ulchi Focus Guardian 11.

I’m excited about our involvement with medical simulation and I expect to report our efforts in future blogs. Stay tuned.