The Gateway

This month, an MC4 Lean Six Sigma (LSS) pilot project at Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) aims to reduce MC4 shipping costs in support of Army medical missions worldwide. The collaborative effort includes support from TYAD, Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Product Manager Joint–Automatic Identification Technology (J-AIT).

Since 2003, MC4 has relied upon commercial carriers from TYAD for three-day service to transport equipment from Pennsylvania to units throughout Southwest Asia, Europe and the Pacific. Upon inspection, carriers missed specified delivery dates approximately 40 percent of the time.

Earlier this year, MC4 began utilizing LSS tools and methodologies to reduce shipping costs by way of utilizing DLA. DLA provides shipping at no cost for MC4, but requires every piece of equipment to have radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for tracking throughout the DLA distribution network. Today, we have teamed up with PM J-AIT and TYAD to install RFID tags on all MC4 equipment en route to theater.

Additionally, MC4 is looking into securing a shipping account with commercial carriers, separate from the option offered by TYAD. Once complete, this would enable MC4 to send equipment with longer or shorter delivery requirements based upon customer needs.

This LSS project, supported by our fellow PEO EIS program (PM J-AIT) and TYAD, will result in a $200,000 annual cost avoidance on shipping costs for the MC4 program, as well as provide the necessary in-transit tracking that will enhance our global fielding mission. The funding previously used for shipping can now be applied to unfunded MC4 requirements to better support our customers.

This month, MC4 is piloting a revamped training program for medical personnel that pass through the reception, staging, onward movement and integration (RSO&I) facility at Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

The goal is to teach users specifically how to use applications to complete tasks, using test data and scenarios built on training servers. This is a shift from new equipment training (NET) provided in Kuwait, as well as in the U.S., which familiarizes users on each application installed on MC4 systems.

Thanks go in large part to the 28th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) and Task Force 1 Medical Brigade for helping us revise our training strategy, as well as to better prepare 90-day rotators.

Additionally, we completed construction on a new training facility in Afghanistan to support units who do not pass through Kuwait for RSO&I and instead arrive directly in Afghanistan. On 18 March, MC4 opened the new training facility at Bagram Air Field to provide enhanced training and support to the AOR.

To schedule MC4 training at the staging areas in Kuwait or Afghanistan, units should send advance notice to MC4 prior deployment.

In April, flight medics in Afghanistan initiated the use of a new tool to electronically chart the care given during medical evacuations (medevacs), as well as at the point of injury. MC4 technical support personnel worked with OTSG, as well as with medics and flight surgeons assigned to C Company, 2-3rd Aviation Regiment at Bagram Airfield, to develop an Alternative Input Method (AIM) form for in-transit care that works with the outpatient application, AHLTA-T.

The template allows for the capture of data from multiple sources used during medevacs into one streamlined template, including any data recorded by medics at the point of injury and forms completed en route by flight medics. The development of the new AIM form builds upon a template created last year by a flight medic to better document the care administered while in the air.

The new AIM form also augments the efforts under way by trauma nurse coordinators (TNCs), who collect trauma data to populate the Joint Theater Trauma Registry (JTTR). Previously, TNCs gathered in-transit data only from paper forms. As a result, staff had to scan and manually transfer data to the trauma database.

This AIM form should assist TNCs to populate JTTR faster and more accurately with data from AHLTA-T and the Theater Medical Data Store (TMDS). Flight medics will continue to use paper run sheets during treatment, but now have a digital form available to better transfer the information into a Service members’ longitudinal health record.

The new medevac template not only bolsters Service members’ electronic medical records with information previously not documented, but also provides researchers additional information to assist with the development of future life-saving technologies for the battlefield.