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PDAs in the Classroom... William D. Corso, EMS Programs ManagerDuring Paramedic clinical training students are required to provide a ton of documentation that consists of patient run reports, types of skills performed, patient complaints and time logs, as well as evaluations of their clinical experience. In the past this has meant a lot of paper pushing with little ability to generate meaningful data.About a year ago, I was thinking of a way to cut down on the paper and at the same time have options to generate performance data. With PDA's finding their way into many facets of education and the business world, I happened upon a database program that would allow me to develop a mechanism to track student progress. At present students are not required to buy PDA's however they must purchase the software that allows them to enter paper data on a desktop. Those that have not purchased PDA's are quickly convinced by their peers after they see how easy it is to use and additionally there are many free downloads which are invaluable tools such as pharmacology databases, drug dose calculators, EKG interpretation, and EMS field guides. Currently exporting the PDA information into Excel allows for the capturing of specific data for reporting such as age categories of patients, the frequency of skills performed and different types of patient complaints. With the help of PDWS I am hoping to develop a way of importing the information into Access that will allow more specific tracking. The information is in the PDA, it is just a question of designing forms and reports that will easily display the data. Feedback from the students has been very positive except for the occasional lost data due to battery failure. The moral is to backup frequently, backup the backup and always carry a spare. To my knowledge, we are the first EMS Program in the surrounding area to be using PDAs for paramedic clinical data tracking. |
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