DALLAS — The U.S. Army is leading the way when it comes to electronic healthcare records.

Medical computer technology pioneered by the Army is being expanded to encompass the other branches of the military.

A handheld computer device called Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care — MC4 for short — is now being used in Iraq and 13 other countries to document healthcare records and to save lives.

Staff Sgt. Taylor Schmidt knows first hand what it's like to be injured in battle.

"That's where they took the remaining part of the round otu and cleaned out the wound and bandaged it up," he said, revealing the site of his injury.

For Sgt. Schmidt and thousands of others on the battlefield, MC4 means that medics no longer have to hand-write medical information like they once did — records that can be ravaged by war.

"You can imagine trying to write a note in a battlefield situation where the paper is wet ... the mortars coming in, the winds blowing, the smells," said Army Col. William Grimes.

Using a stylus, medics in the field can quickly input vital statistics on the PDA-based device when seconds count.

"Here is the body image," said MC4 trainer Efrain Baez, pointing to the outline of a body on the device's screen. "You actually place the wound in where the body it is located."

The field medic then just taps the screen to create a specific record of the wound's location, and selects from lists to describe its nature and severity, along with additional information including blood pressure and medicinces used.

When an injured solider leaves the battlefield for the hospital, his records are already there — beamed electronically.

More than five million electronic records have been captured since MC4's deployment, transforming the way medical information is documented by the military in battle and at home.

"It takes hours away from the paperwork process and does it in seconds now, digitally," Col. Grimes said. "It absolutely saves lives."

Sgt. Schmidt agrees. "It gives me peace of mind — not only for myself, but for my soldiers as well, to know that they will be taken care of."

The military says MC4 is also being used to track disease outbreaks and to monitor staffing in the battlefield.

E-mail tfoster@wfaa.com