clinical and internship tracking tool randall w. benner, m.ed, nremt-p university of cincinnati,...

Clinical and Internship Tracking Tool

Randall W. Benner, M.Ed, NREMT-P

University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine

Program Director, CFD EMS Program

Tracking a Student’s Activity• This spread sheet was designed simply to track student

clinical and internship exposures in our program. Although it works well for us, that does not mean it will fit perfectly into your EMS program without some editing.

• Helps to meet many State and CoA standards for tracking exposures across age, gender, pathology, and complaint.

• Macros have been developed to more efficiently summarize the data.

Basic Design• ITEMS ACROSS THE TOP (rows 2-3)

– These are the skills, pathologies, demographics, etc. that are tracked• The number in parenthesis is the program’s requirement for that particular

skill/experience

• TOP LEFT COLUMN (rows 4-19)– These are the clinical (hospital) rotation sites and the rows that totals

this data

• BOTTOM LEFT COLUMN (rows 22-37)– These are the internship rotation sites and the rows that totals this data

• As the boxes are filled in according to the daily site and skill/experience gained, and the data is “posted” the EXCEL program will keep a running total across the bottom so the student and program can see progression towards the required outcomes.

A Portion of the Tracking Formshows YSU clinical tracking

Internship Breakdowns

Items Tracked• In order to assure student exposure, progression,

and adherence to CoAEMSP and many State standards, the following are tracked (the student must PERFORM the skills to get credit, not observe:– Hours spent in each rotation– Patient demographics– Skills– Complaints– Pathologies– Other Paramedical Skills

Items Tracked

Student instructions for the use of the Tracking Sheet

Getting Started

1. You will need to download two programs• Clinical Student Internship Master.xls• Clinical Internship Master.xls

2. You will use the “clinical internship master” file to create the student’s individual files.

Step 1

• Open “clinical internship master” file.

• You will see the below screen.

Step 2• Reopen the file, and you’ll see something

similar to the following (student files)

Step 3

• Email or copy the each file to the respective student that is going to be filling it out, unless you have faculty that reviews the student’s exposures and can enter it themselves.

• Explain to students how to complete the EXCEL sheet (next slide)

Step 3 - Students

• The student enters their daily data into the tab identified as “<student name>-INPUT” (second tab from left)

• After entering hours and skills data, they will click on the “instructions” tab, and click the button labeled

“Post Input Data to Totals Sheet”• They then click on the third tab, “student01”, and they

can see their completed work.• Students can track EMS run numbers with 4th tab• When done, student should re-save file.

Step 4

• At prescheduled times, have the students give you back a copy of their updated file.

• Put all these files back into the same directory as they were originated (overwrite).

• Open “clinical internship master.xls” file

Step 4 continued

• With all files in same directory, run data using below buttons….

The Individual Summary

• Formatted to be placed in the student’s file• The summary File has tabs for each student• Created by a macro which reads the data from

the student’s spreadsheet

The Individual Summary

• An individual student’s summary of – Hours– Skills

• For both Clinical and Internship activity

The Combined Summary

• A summary of all student’s activity• Create a totals summary sheet for departmental (accreditation)

use, and to track individual student progress

• Broken down by– Clinical / Internship / Accumulated– Fall / Spring / Summer / Total

The Combined Summary

What to do with data?

1. Analyze outcomes to ensure breadth of student exposures

2. Helps assure student progression and completion

3. Print out individual copy for student records

4. Print out summative records for program administrative files

Conclusion

• Efficient and accurate student tracking is becoming more and more important.

• This program is just one way to achieve this end, other ways do exist.

• Although I am not a computer program by profession, please email me with any questions and I’ll do my absolute best to help you! THANKS!!

randall.benner@yahoo.com