Merging Current Technology and Field Medicine

PACIFIC OCEAN

09.26.2019

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Harley Sarmiento 

USNS MERCY (T-AH 19)

PACIFIC OCEAN – If you see a doctor at a hospital at home, medical records and documentation are an expectation, so why wouldn’t you expect the same from a world-class hospital ship like Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19)?

When conducting Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR), patients in other countries or our own service members in the field weren’t always granted the opportunity to walk away with documentation, but digital pens are changing that.

“The digital pens are a patient data collection system for field or remote location medicine,” said Jackie Shorrock, a member of the digital pen training team embarked on Mercy for Mercy Exercise (MERCEX) 19-4. “Mercy was the first ship to pilot and utilize the pens around 2015, and we are here to train new Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen who would use these in a disaster situation.”

The digital pens are used across both of the MSC hospital ships, Mercy and USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), and the Expeditionary Fast Transport platforms that deploy to aid the hospital ships.

The goal of the digital pen is to keep track of what the provider, nurse, or corpsman did while caring for the patient. This then would provide the patient seen in the foreign country or field to walk away from the medical care site with a record of care so they can continue care with a provider in their home country or once they come back to their home station.

“Not only does this system benefit the patient, it also benefits the ship,” said Shorrock. “We can order supplies for missions with the research collected from the pen. With the help of Naval Health Research Center, the ship can properly plan and execute the next mission and maintain a stock on the medicines and supply we may need, just by looking back at the digital records stored from the pen, the last time you were in that area of operation.”

The digital pen combines current technology and field medicine in a simple and effective way. The use of the digital pen doesn’t take a huge learning curve. Training people on short readiness missions like MERCEX makes the system more effective in a moments call.

“This was a refresher training for me since I used the digital pens on Pacific Partnership 2018 with the Mercy,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Catherine Rodenhaver, a patient administration corpsman. “The system is very simple to learn and super effective when used in the field. It made tracking patient information much easier for our department and kept us on top of everything on the medical sites.”

Mercy is currently operating off the coast of San Diego for MERCEX 19-4. Mercy is one of two hospital ships owned and operated by Military Sealift Command. Mercy conducts operations in the Pacific area of responsibility under the guidance of U.S Pacific Command and Commander Pacific Fleet.

• Date Taken: 09.26.2019
• Date Posted: 09.26.2019 21:06
• Story ID: 344024
• Location: PACIFIC OCEAN