January 2023 is right around the corner. Are you ready to implement the “new” 2023 Committee on Accreditation of Educational Programs for the Emergency Medical Services Professions (CoAEMSP) Student Minimum Competency (SMC) matrix? Is your tracking vendor ready?
The 2023 version of the SMC is more manageable than the prior version for both educators and students, but it presents a challenge for those developing tech solutions in support of EMS education.
Sterling has met the challenge. We have enrolled cohorts into the “new” SMC since January of of LAST year.
When the CoAEMSP rolled it out to us about a month prior to public release, we immediately dropped all development plans to focus on this new and easier SMC. Among the first questions to answer: “How do we differentiate between a formative and a summative patient contact?”
The CoAEMSP suggests that a formative contact will include at least a primary and a secondary assessment while a summative one will include evidence that the paramedic candidate led the development and implementation of the management plan.
Since Sterling was initially set up to both “track” the educational experience AND support it, we already had the parts in place to readily detect this distinction. Our “sPCR” (student pt care report) format easily adapts to record student-specific reporting of skills…skills as specified in both the SMC and the NREMT PPCP.
EXCERPT OF STUDENT-AUTHORED Patient Care Report. Notice the chronological sequence of events and the separation of the primary and secondary assessment. This assists the student interweaving assessment with intervention.
What I mean by that for example: students must recognize that their primary assessment findings should stimulate relevant interventions BEFORE they continue the assessment process. It is also one of the most challenging concepts to integrate as students get so hyper-focused on learning “the check-sheet” of assessment that they blow right past doing any interventions.
To combat this student tendency we broke up the documentation of the assessment process so that the student is able to document chronologically the primary assessment, any interventions completed, and THEN the findings of the secondary assessment.
Thus, we’d inadvertently precisely positioned the Sterling platform to pivot to the new SMC as the CoAEMSP hones its own approach. THIS is the advantage of not just consulting an educator but having an educator designing the platform from day one. Only an experienced educator understands how the process can suddenly change direction based on the needs of a particular class, affiliate environment, or administrative challenge.
We were ready because Sterling IS for education–just like the CoAEMSP. Is it any surprise that we’re headed in the same general direction? And having an educator constantly thinking, evaluating, and re-planning means we remain as fluid as a paramedic on-scene.
The student processes within Sterling will not change for the foreseeable future because they are designed to 1) be simple, 2) parallel real-life work-flow, and 3) cover the vast majority of educational variables.
Students have only 2 data-recording functions within Sterling: 1) evaluate a PEER’s skill performance via check sheet and 2) author reports. Even so, we’ve shifted as much work AWAY from instructors as possible. For example, in Sterling a “simulation” should simulate every aspect–including paperwork. After a sim, the student gets skill credits by writing a PCR. The instructor simply evaluates the student performance as a team leader. Gone are the days of having to document 15 skills across 25 simulations while still trying to get pt contact credit for the team members.
So, if you are NOT ready for the new SMC (or your vendor isn’t), reach out to us. It is my absolute passion and pleasure to help you refocus on your TRUE mission of creating spectacular clinicians by taking the brunt of the “dumb jobs” myself.
Learn more: www.CoATheEasyWay.com
Schedule a visit and/or a tour with Julianne.