Common Technology Challenges Facing EMS Schools and How To Solve Them
CourseKey’s purpose-built career education software solves many of the technology challenges facing EMS schools and training programs.
EMS Schools face unique technology challenges when tracking attendance and skills in the clinical environment. Unlike traditional clinicals or externships held in a fixed location, EMS students are mobile and need a mobile-first solution. Instead, students and staff are bogged down with complicated tracking processes prone to fraud.
Here are four critical technology challenges facing EMS schools and how to solve them with CourseKey.
Challenge #1: Attendance Processes are Vulnerable to Fraud
The nature of EMS training makes it complicated to get an accurate depiction of student hours. Students enter attendance into a complex system, sometimes days later without real accuracy or visibility. Many common tools don’t allow students to stay clocked in past midnight, complicating check in and check out.
CourseKey knows a thing or two about student-facing technology. Our student app has 4.8 stars versus other leading EMS technology providers with 1 star.
While some schools with clinicals have strong relationships with site preceptors, EMS students may have a different preceptor every time. EMS schools cannot simply reach out to the site preceptor to confirm a student’s attendance.
The solution: Student-driven, automated attendance for any environment.
New attendance technology can verify student attendance and prevent fraud in any environment. For example, students can check in at one location at the beginning of their shift and check out from another at the end, avoiding multiple check ins and outs when switching sites. CourseKey’s attendance technology also allows students to stay checked in overnight.
Challenge #2: Tracking Student Skills Is Overly Complicated
Your staff and students shouldn’t have to go through a 12-step process just to enter one skill. Currently, many EMS schools use a convoluted process that’s subject to fraud and forgery.
The Solution: Digital skills tracking
With CourseKey’s mobile skills tracking app, students quickly record the skills they completed, and instructors or preceptors approve or reject the skill with a note required for any rejections. Students can upload proof of skills accomplishment directly from the field with the CourseKey app on their mobile phones, preventing fraud.
Challenge #3: Limited Progress Visibility For Students and Staff
EMS students need to meet a required number of class hours and practice specific skills to graduate. It can be challenging to ensure they’re completing the correct skills because they respond to whichever emergency calls come up during their schedule. A limited and inaccurate picture of student progress can delay critical intervention with at-risk students.
The Solution: Real-time visibility for students and staff with CourseKey
CourseKey combines clinical attendance and skills tracking into one clear student dashboard, allowing students and staff to better view program progress.
Staff members can help ensure students are gaining the skills they need to complete their program on time, and students can make informed decisions that help them progress towards graduation.
Challenge #4: Insufficient Technology Requiring Manual Processes
Anytime your staff has to adjust skills or attendance records manually, you run the risk of human error in your data. Errors and delayed data can cause delayed intervention, which, at worst, could result in student attrition. Unfortunately, elevated attrition can lead to accreditation probation.
The Solution: Eliminate Manual Processes
CourseKey’s attendance and skills tracking system automatically transfers data into the SIS—no manual data entry required. Eliminating manual data entry and simplifying back-office tasks creates scalable processes, allowing your school to grow more quickly. Additionally, removing manual processes reduces staff and students’ burden, giving instructors more time to teach and students more time to learn.
Leveraging Technology To Improve Student Experience and Grow Your EMS School
Just because attendance and skills tracking has historically been complex for EMS schools doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Request a demo to learn more about how CourseKey helps EMS schools like yours eliminate manual processes to better support students.
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