Army College Adds EMR Systems to Syllabus
Written by Bill Snethen and Ray Steen
Their expertise takes them to the frontlines where medical detachments and command and control elements require immediate assistance. The kind of help that won’t tolerate users forced to navigate voicemail prompts.
Supporting more than a dozen complex, standard Army management information systems (STAMIS) in the war zone requires more than a Microsoft certification and completion of classes advertised during daytime television.
It mandates an understanding of how the military works, keeping pace with the ever-changing information security landscape and a knack for getting military computer users where they need to go on the network.
Tasked with training up the Army’s IT skills, the Army Logistics Management College (ALMC) has thrown another complex system into their mix of instruction—medical communications for combat casualty care (MC4).
As the DoD’s battlefield medical recording system, MC4 canvas all CSHs, clinics and battalion aid stations throughout Southwest Asia, Europe and South Korea in support of OIF and OEF. MC4 became part of the ALMC curriculum in 2007, when the institution overhauled its entire CSSAMO training with a new learning philosophy and a renewed focus on critical information systems abroad.
“Our goal is not to teach the class to be functional experts on the systems,” said Martha Ann Spurlock, CSSAMO training director at ALMC. “Initially, we spent a lot of time during the MC4 segment teaching the students how to enter patient demographics and treatment information. While those items are important for clinical personnel to perform, it is not relevant to CSSAMO staff. They need to know what to do if applications do not work properly or if the hardware is malfunctioning. So we’ve tweaked the class so they can best fulfill their responsibilities.”
THEN AND NOW
In 2003, ALMC held its last training class for CSSAMO personnel. The curriculum primarily focused on supply and maintenance systems. By then, the course contents and materials were outdated, and leadership decided to cease the class altogether rather than overhaul it.
As a result, Spurlock picked up the torch to fill a void in Army training and developed a revamped opportunity for the CSSAMO community. She talked with STAMIS personnel and systems administrators to help determine new course content. Spurlock also committed to making the learning hands on. “We’ve tailored the class so that it is interactive from the moment the students step into the room,” Spurlock said. “This way, they have the knowledge and experience to support multiple systems when they go downrange. We offer a learning opportunity that really didn’t exist before we started the class in late 2007.”
Using feedback from students, Spurlock reshaped the material for the course to teach what mattered most to students. Topics that were less critical or required less attention fell to the back of the line and hot topic areas assumed center stage, like the Standard Army Maintenance System-Enhanced (SAM-E), the Unit Level Logistics System (ULLS), and now—MC4. Partnering with the MC4 Product Management Office, one day in ALMC’s 18-day classroom boot camp at Fort Lee, Va., is dedicated to MC4. The course prepares Army IT professionals with the skills they’ll need in the combat zone to help the nation’s best doctors and nurses capture critical medical information without skipping a beat. Sustaining the systems ultimately leads to improved continuity of care and a complete medical history—useful when soldiers apply for VA medical benefits.
“If an MC4 laptop does not function properly, users will call these guys to make it work again,” Spurlock said. “The CSSAMO staff needs to know how to troubleshoot and repair the problems.”
PAYING DIVIDENDS, CREATING MOMENTUM
Major Iva Kimbrough, CSSAMO with the 316th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), deployed to Balad, Iraq, from June 2007 to June 2008. Prior to her arrival in theater, she did not have experience supporting STAMIS systems. She wishes she had attended the new class prior to her deployment. “The information taught in this class is the exact assignment CSSAMO personnel have when deployed to theater,” Kimbrough said. “You set up your STAMIS network and support all of the systems we learned during the past three weeks. Coming to this class provides the valuable knowledge and experience CSSAMO personnel need in order to hit the ground running.” Lucky to have had his training in the bag prior to deployment, Hayden Weekes, a support contractor for the Directorate of Logistics at Fort Dix, N.J., said his CSSAMO class provided him with a road map to getting problems solved more efficiently over the past 12 months.
“Previously, I would tinker with the systems to become familiar with the equipment,” Weekes said. “I would break fully functional systems and then try to make them work again. Now, I’ve learned some steps to help narrow my search for the source of system problems.”
Spurlock and her team occasionally move the class to other locations, including Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort Lewis, Wash. Regardless of the location, the class continues to draw eager and dedicated students. Most arrive early and stay late to get the most out of their hands-on training and practice time with the equipment. This commitment was best illustrated by students attending a class held at Fort Bragg in the spring.
“We learned that President George W. Bush planned to visit Fort Bragg, and the motorcade was going to travel very close to the building where our class met,” Spurlock said. “The road in front of our building was to be closed at 6:30 a.m. for security reasons. The class started daily at 8 a.m. The students didn’t want to miss any of the class, so they arrived at 4:30 a.m. instead. They decided that arriving very early for class was better than being late and possibly missing some of the material.”
AN EXTENDED ARM OF MC4 SUPPORT BORN
It is the hope of Spurlock and MC4 that the interest and fortitude CSSAMO personnel display during the new training will translate onto the battlefield. With tens of thousands of MC4 laptops, handhelds, servers and printers dispersed throughout 200 medical treatment facilities in the war zone, much of the success on documenting patient care relies heavily on technical support provided by onsite personnel.
With only 50 MC4 systems administrators (SAs) in SWA, MC4 users will be relying on a coordinated support infrastructure to ensure systems deliver patient information and medical surveillance capabilities to medical leadership. In 2008, MC4 initiated a three-tiered support agreement between deployed medical units, CSSAMO and S6 personnel, and MC4 SAs in theater to ensure nothing fell between the gaps.
Now, with a new commitment to training Army support personnel on these medical systems prior to deployment, CSSAMO will prove to be an invaluable extension of MC4 support in theater.
“I really believe that we are making a difference with this class,” Spurlock said. “This is the class that CSSAMO staff need, and it is probably the closest training they receive to prepare them for their role downrange. When the CSSAMO personnel arrive, they might not have a lot of experience with all of the STAMIS systems, but when they leave, they are familiar with them and they have the tools to support them.”
For more information on the ALMC CSSAMO class, contact Martha Spurlock at
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. For more information on MC4, visit www.mc4.army.mil. ♦
Bill Snethen and Ray Steen are with MC4 public affairs.