Photo By Sgt. Austin Long | Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Windle, a psychiatric technician from Miami, with 2nd...... read more read more
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CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - When a service member is given a task they sometimes choose to go above and beyond the call of duty to improve or help begin the building blocks for a more successful and quicker mission accomplishment through the resources available to them.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Windle, a psychiatric technician from Miami, with 2nd Marine Regiment Operational Stress Control and Readiness (OSCAR), was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, April 25, for his key role in developing the Integrated Clinical Management and Risk Mitigation System, in front of 2nd Marine Regiment headquarters.
“The award was for the work we did with the ICM raps (ICM-RMS) database, which stands for integrated clinical management risk mitigation system,” said Windle. “That is a database that takes all the clinical administrative duties in the OSCAR team and puts them in a database system but also links them with the command to provide a better communication system with commands on high risk Marines. We’ve implanted that system down to company, battalion, and other aid stations level, and what we’ve done with that is increase 2nd Marine Regiment’s ability to carry out the regiment's force readiness mission by providing higher tracking capabilities on all high risk Marines in the Regiment.”
The program also helps the medical staff in their daily mission of tracking and aiding high risk Marines, who come in and out of the team’s door for treatment, by using the database for all scheduling, medication and high risk medication tracking, said Windle.
A psychiatrist with the team noticed something missing that could help in their daily job routine and possibly in helping speed up the communication process between medical staff and commands on Marines being seen for psychological treatment.
“Dr. Benowitz, the psychologists here with the OSCAR team, felt there was a lack of communication between OSCAR, the mental health assets, the units and BAS (base aid station) that could be improved by using an electronic system that could be used between us,” said Windle.
The database also helps the OSCAR team keep a track on the Marines it sees for appointments as far as any documented high risk incidents that can affect their mental health or that show a pattern in behavior.
“Also, say a Marine at the company level gets a DUI; they can put in the database that he just got a DUI and the database will show that one of the Marines, who is our patient, just got a DUI, which will increase his high risk visibility and the database will notify us of that before the guy comes in,” said Windle. “Which is a problem we’ve ran into because when someone comes in they don’t always tell us everything. So sometimes we don’t know just how high risk they are and the database helps mitigate that. This helps protect the Marines by keeping a visibility on that and hopefully [we can] prevent any serious suicide issues or harmful acts to themselves or others.”
Windle played a key part in helping get the program on a level that everyone could use. With a new advancement in technology, it was important that everyone knew how to use it or the program would quickly become obsolete and not be able to fix the problem noticed by the team’s psych.
“My part was doing all the testing; we’ve had at least 15-20 different versions we’ve developed, tested and improved on,” said Windle “I also developed the training program to teach all the company, battalion, and regimental commanding officers and medical officers how to use it [the program]. We’ve implemented it through most of the Regiment and my role, in the beginning, was to go out and show them how to adequately use it and install it on their computers, said Windle.
Headquarters Marine Corps is currently evaluating and testing the program for possible future dispersion to all units in the Marine Corps, said Windle. Currently the database is being used by every battalion in the Regiment, RAS Company, Headquarters Company and is in the process of being implemented to every infantry company in the regiment. Also, the 8th and 6th Marine Regiment OSCAR teams are using the database.
| Date Taken: | 04.25.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 04.26.2013 12:54 |
| Story ID: | 105911 |
| Location: | CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | MIAMI, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 198 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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