The Adair County Ambulance District places a significant amount of time and energy ensuring that our current EMT’s and Paramedics are continually offered training consistent with the relicensure guidelines of the National Registry, and the current trends or “hot topics” within the industry. We feel that in order to provide up-to-date and high quality care employees must always stay engaged in the life-long learning process, and continually pursue ways in which to enhance their current level of understanding and ability.
The ways in which we ensure our team is given the best opportunity to be successful in their efforts to deliver high-level care to all of our patients are as follows:
Clinical Continuous Quality Improvement (CCQI) – The Adair County Ambulance District has an extensive CCQI program which reviews all aspects of a call (prospective, concurrent, and retrospective) and delivers timely, consistent feedback to the providers. When deficiencies are observed the internal training program delivers remediation and follow-up to the provider to find out why the error occurred, and attempt to prevent it from happening again.
Monthly Protocol Testing – The Adair County Ambulance District has a comprehensive set of “cutting edge” pre-hospital Clinical Protocols which are constantly reviewed and revised by our Medical Director. In an effort to ensure employees are knowledgeable about the protocols, and aware of any changes that occur within the protocols, there is a monthly examination process that is delivered by the internal training program.
Monthly Continuing Education (CEU’s) – In an effort to maintain individual providers licensure, and ensure team members stay current with the “hot topics” within the industry, the Adair County Ambulance District offers monthly continuing education courses to our team. Crew members are required to attend these sessions, and by attending, not only does it improve their current level of understanding/knowledge, but it also satisfies the requirements of National Registry Re-licensure.
On-line Learning – In addition to the classroom/lab hours, team members are also asked to complete a monthly online session which focuses specifically on the “core” cognitive requirements of the National Registry.
Quarterly Competencies – There are many skills an EMT and/or Paramedic need to master to be effective in the delivery of pre-hospital care. To ensure our team always maintains a high level of proficiency regarding all of the various skills, we have a quarterly competency check where employee’s ability to perform skills is evaluated in an attempt to ensure they continuously maintain a high level of proficiency.
Individualized Training – We feel this is the most important aspect of the internal training program here at the Adair County Ambulance District. By recognizing deficiencies identified through the CQI process, direct on-scene observation, or by employees requesting specific types of training. The internal training program develops and deploys individualized training to specific providers in an effort to build on their strengths, and improve their weaknesses as a provider.