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 toolMSAT (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.