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. I would recommend opening the file “clinical internship student master.xls” while reviewing this PPT file.

It looks rather intimidating, but it’s actually quite easy to navigate It looks rather intimidating, but it’s actually quite easy to navigate. The following slides are designed to help show this.

A Portion of the Tracking Form shows YSU clinical tracking If you look down the left column, you’ll see how we had our data set up according to the semester and location of the clinicals. You can edit the wording in the cells of this column only to better match your program, however you CANNOT change how the program totals each (subtotals). Nor can you “add a row” or “delete a row”. This will have a negative impact on the macros that will combine and summarize student’s data. Across the second row, you will see in parenthesis a number following whatever is in the cell, this number represents the minimum number for each exposure the student in our program was required to attain in order to graduate (this is not a “CoA” standard nor NSC standard – it’s simply YSU’s standard). You will need to change this number to meet your specific program requirements. The most efficient way to alter these cells is to alter them on the “Clinical Internship Student Master.xls” file and then resave it WITHOUT editing the file name whatsoever. If you create the specific student EXCEL spread sheet after making these edits, then their sheet will read the accurate information. Read on for more information on how to do this.

The generic version that you will be using from Brady Publishing will look like this initially until you edit the clinical sites to fit your program.

Internship Breakdowns Again, the left image shows the breakdown of the EMS services we use in our area. The right image is the “generic” version you’ll be editing for your program. This data (the EMS service name) can be edited if you like according to the aforementioned process. You CANNOT change how the program totals each (subtotals). Nor can you “add a row” or “delete a row”. This will have a negative impact on the macros that will combine and summarize all the students data. The most efficient way to alter these cells is to alter them on the “Clinical Internship Student Master.xls” file and then resave it WITHOUT editing the file name whatsoever.

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 As mentioned previously, the number in parenthesis can be edited to reflect your program needs. You could also rename some of the cells or delete the label for the cells if you don’t wish to track that data. I would recommend though, to leave all the data labels in place in case a student is able to perform one of those skills. Just leave the number required at “0”.

Student instructions for the use of the Tracking Sheet Here is an example of the instructions that the student will read on the first “tab” of their individual program. Reinforce with them that they need to adhere to these instructions specifically in order for the program to run correctly.

Getting Started You will need to download two programs Clinical Student Internship Master.xls Clinical Internship Master.xls 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. I would recommend loading both files onto a flash drive (jump drive, thumb drive, etc) prior to setting up programs in a specific folder which identifies your class (i.e. 2010-2011 medic). This is to make finding the files easier to do later on…. Read instructions in box on right hand side. Delete out the information listed as examples in the first two columns. Enter in the first and last name of your students (if you have more than 2 students with same name, program will figure it out) Insure “macro” programs are enabled on your computer. Click the “Generate Filenames” button, you’ll see the third column (gray color) populated with the students names. Then click on “Generate Tracking Sheets” button, and the program will run a specific EXCEL file for each student that they will enter their data into.

Step 2 Reopen the file, and you’ll see something similar to the following (student files) Fictitious group of students – shows what the file names will be after they are generated.

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. This step may seem daunting at first, but realistically it takes about 1 minute to master……

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 Continued on next slide…..

Step 4 continued With all files in same directory, run data using below buttons…. These two steps may take a considerable amount of time given the number of students and the volume of skills they have completed. Ensure again that “macros” are enabled on your EXCEL file. Also important to note that these files will work best when the program and the students are using the latest version of Microsoft EXCEL. If earlier versions are used, you may get some error screens that asks you if its ok for the program find best solution. Tell it to do so (again, this may have to be done several times….but it is a problematic feature of using multiple EXCEL platforms).

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 Example of what the printed file would look like…..

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 Example of some fictitious data. Please note that if a student drops out or fails out (as in this example “Joyce Huggins”), do not exclude her file from the data processing. The macro program will be looking for it. Just keep recalculating with the last version of the student file that you received.

What to do with data? Analyze outcomes to ensure breadth of student exposures Helps assure student progression and completion Print out individual copy for student records 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