Monday, August 27, 2007

MC4 Training in Iraq Versus CONUS - SGT(P) Larry R. Rogers, 1st Infantry, Battalion Aid Station NCOIC

I just completed the system administrator (SA) training at Al Assad, Iraq. I think that if the providers received a brief on what MC4 does before they deployed, it would be a great help to the setup and use of the system. There were several things that I didn't know about the capabilities of MC4 that I will now be able to implement when I get back to my forward operating base.

The training that I received at Fort Carson, Colo., was nowhere near the total capacity of what the medical systems are doing in theater. The training lab at Al Assad should be an example for the training classes in CONUS. During new equipment training it is great to go over the programs but you don't get the experience of using all the systems. Some applications, such as Theater Medical Data Server (TMDS) and Joint Medical Workstation (JMeWS), were not even covered during my initial training. Now I can access patient notes from level 2 and 3 facilities that didn't usually make it back to CONUS with the patients.

This system is a great improvement over the paper trail that was used in the past. If we could get the physicians to train on the applications, I don't think that there would be so much angst about the difference between CHCS II T (AHLTA-T) and AHLTA.

It seams that the physicians that talk badly about MC4 do not understand the complexity of the system or they have never used MC4 in theater. My physicians love with the system because it means completing a lot less paperwork even though they do not fully understand the capabilities of Theater Medical Information Program (TMIP) yet. When I get back and teach them what they can do, they're not going to want to go back to AHLTA.

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