New MC4 product manager lays out goals
Connecting state and local government leaders
Army Lt. Col. Edward T. Clayson, product manager for the Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care, said he plans to bring the tactical medical units to more medics in the field.
The Army recently appointed Lt. Col. Edward T. Clayson, a veteran Army manager with a background in basic and applied medical research, as the new product manager for its Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care initiative.
Clayson, who took over Sept. 21 during a change-of-charter ceremony at Fort Detrick, Md., replaced Lt. Col. Claude Hines Jr. This week, Hines became the program manager for the Theater Medical Information Program (TMIP), which develops the software products that run across MC4 hardware.
'At no point has digital medical recording been more relevant than it is today,' Clayson said. 'Our efforts directly impact how well equipped our deployed medical units are in supporting the global war on terrorism.'
Clayson said his goals for MC4 are to bring the tactical medical units to more medics in the field, to work closely with TMIP to improve the software that is developed for MC4, and to focus on rolling out the Electronic Information Carrier within the next three years. EIC is a small electronic card that could be worn by a soldier like a dog tag and fed into handheld devices. It would feature a soldiers' medical history.
MC4 is the infrastructure that integrates military and commercial hardware and software products into a complete automated medical records picture for deployed forces. The tactical system runs on ruggedized notebook PCs and handhelds, and offers surveillance, tracking and logistical information on a patient's whereabouts and condition.
Using the hardware and software products that make up the suite of MC4 products, medics treat patients on the battlefield by giving them access to medical records in the Composite Health Care System II Theater database. So far, more than 9,000 MC4 systems have been deployed to 250 medical units in Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, and the service plans to deploy additional units to Afghanistan, Germany and South Korea in 2006.
MC4 links about a dozen Army Medical Department operational systems and features a Battlefield Medical Information System-Telemedicine application that lets medics enter information from the field, such as if a soldier is wounded.