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GCN Home > 05/01/06 issue

Health IT goes to war

Watts spearheads work on a battlefield records system

By Drew Robb, Special to GCN

Recovering the wounded from the battlefield is a tradition as old as warfare. But it wasn’t until Napoleon that the importance of treating the wounded on the field was emphasized. Now, the Army’s Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4) has taken that a step further.

Getting the MC4 system successfully deployed to the troops on the firing lines in Iraq was the responsibility of Maj. Kevin Watts, MC4’s assistant product manager, and those under his command. The mission was accomplished.

“The MC4 project has, for the first time in history, provided the means to document electronically the health care provided to warfighters on the battlefield,” said Lt. Col. Edward Clayson, MC4’s commander and product manager at Fort Detrick, Md.

“Kevin is focused on the mission,” he said, “and he accomplishes the mission with the greatest efficiency.”

Career path

Watts embarked on this road when he joined the Army out of high school. After completing his initial enlistment, he enrolled in college, spent four years in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and got a bachelor of science degree. When he graduated, he returned to active duty in 1993 as a second lieutenant.

For the next several years, he held a variety of positions in medical units in Texas and New York before becoming CIO of the 6th Medical Logistics Management Center in 2001. The unit was created to provide centralized information management of medical material and medical equipment maintenance to deployed forces.

As CIO, Watts was responsible for establishing remotely hosted logistics systems databases for Army medical facilities. Before the Iraq war began, he went to Kuwait to configure satellite phones for use in medical consultations and logistics.

Then, once Baghdad was taken, he went there for a month to set up network connections and provide medical logistics application training for medical supply officers and treatment facilities.

“Watts’ courage has no boundaries,” said Kevin Carroll, the Army’s Program Executive Officer for enterprise information systems. “While deploying into a combat zone, Watts successfully completed his mission by leading a team of contractors in training and fielding a complex IM/IT system during a time of war.”

But Watts takes working under such conditions in stride. “I would never ask someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” he said.

From there he moved on to the position of assistant product manager for MC4. The MC4 system consists of handheld devices and ruggedized notebook PCs that medical personnel in the field use to enter treatment rendered. Then the data is uploaded and becomes part of the soldier’s permanent medical record. MC4 improves the quality of care given in the battle zone, as well as making it easier to get the right services when they return home.

More news on related topics: Content / Record Management, Defense IT, Health IT, Management, IT Management



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