Maintaining Quality Control w/personnel

[Guest]

I would like a copy of your "peer review" this sounds like something that would work for my station as well......Thank you

[paramedicsue]

We have been thinking of starting a "Peer Review" committee also. Do you have a list of duties etc that is expected of them? We are not sure where to start with this. If so, would you be willing to share them with us?

[kmacinct]

Anyone with Peer Review and/or QA documents, I'd really like to be included in your mailings!

We want to get something off the ground here too...

Kevin

Colchester, CT

kevin@colchesterfd.com

[retired_medic61]

I believe strongly in a good preceptor program. I also believe in a peer review as long as the organization has mature professionals with a spirit of quality improvement otherwise it will become a backstabbing session. Unfortunately, most of the services that I have been a part of have those individuals that do not look at things with quality assurance and improvement in mind but as "John missed 2 IV's last week...what a f****** moron".

[Just Plain Ruff]

Having been involved in a number of QI/QA projects what you need to do is to maintain anonymity if all members of a service are doing this project.

I would start off on reviewing your run reports for completeness and all boxes checked. Keep a log of these.

I would not assign crew members to review other crews reports as this can turn into a quagmire. One crew member reads anothers report and spreads it around that he did something or didn't do something. Leads to monday morning quarterbacking.

What you need is one person assigned to reviewing the reports and bringing deficiencies up to the report writer in a private method. One person is good for a service which runs less than 1000 calls a year but you need more if you run more calls. Or more if you won't assign that duty to someone as their full time responsibility.

You can allow rewards for most percentage completed tickets or what not. Incentives you know.

If you do decide to do a Peer review - confidentiality agreements should be signed. As they are looking at run reports that they had no part in and could be considered by some a HIPAA violation unless that person took care of the patient.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ::: SHOULD THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE REPORT BE ALLOWED TO REVIEW THEIR OWN REPORT

What we did at our service is assign on a monthly rotational basis each crew member to take a specific type of call.

Mike takes cardiac arrest

joe takes trauma

john takes chest pain

Barry takes medical

etc etc etc

The people reviewing the reports should not talk about the quality of the reports to anyone except the person in charge of the QI initiative.

QI is a good thing but it can be taken too far and you can get way to into the nitty gritty of stuff. If you can get ahold of someone to come out to your service who is certified as belt level in Six Sigma that would be best. Local hospitals who do six sigma usually have someone on staff. That would be a good place to start.

I think I have some stuff for six sigma and qi programs for ambulance services so let me see what i Have.

[FireResq617]

Started a similiar review process aimed towards supervisors and management for the purpose of organizational development. We call it 360 degree evaluations. Supervisor/Manager evaluates themself, all medics and emt's evaluate the performance of thier Supervisor. Have found this to be very effective because supervisors have a tendenancy to overlook their bad habits and I can assure you that the medics and emt's will be brutally honest... but his does help with evaluation of the management team. Also, medics and emt's feel like they do have a voice and have a part in keeping supervisors accountable for their actions on all levels.

Remember that most people leave their job not because of the job but the immediate supervisor!

[Guest]

Started a similar review process aimed towards supervisors and management for the purpose of organizational development. We call it 360 degree evaluations. Supervisor/Manager evaluates themselves, all medics and emt's evaluate the performance of their Supervisor. Have found this to be very effective because supervisors have a tendency to overlook their bad habits and I can assure you that the medics and emt's will be brutally honest... but his does help with evaluation of the management team. Also, medics and emt's feel like they do have a voice and have a part in keeping supervisors accountable for their actions on all levels.

Remember that most people leave their job not because of the job but the immediate supervisor!

True oh so True!

Please could you explain "feel like they do have a voice" just so that I understand before I go off on a tangent, again.

Unfortunately, I have seen some forms of this methodology fail miserably, the implementation was not thoroughly thought through. (hey that's alliteration)

Firstly: I am not a "structural firefighter" but the Chain of Command must to be maintained without question in most situations.

Personally have been in situations where the subordinate inexperienced workers questioned leaders ON SCENE as they felt that there input was just as valuable and frankly it was a wreck and mostly due to a new QA the new perceived warm soft and fuzzy policy's.

Please understand I am not questioning the 360 evaluations just attempting to point out that blind implementation of these "Concepts" can be troublesome if the ground rules are not clearly established from the get go.

squint

Note; a recent peer "Patient Care Documentation" review that I attended ended up in fisticuffs!

[RWEBB]

I have a question for anyone who can answer. I work in Performance Management for our very large service and I have 50 dispatchers and call takers to give feedback to. Due to time constraints, I mostly get to use paper reports as the delivery mode for the feedback. Has anyone out there had a paperbased feedback system that they changed to something else and it has really worked well?

Cheers

[paramedicsue]

We are a very small paid volunteer service who's moral is so low. I want to start a peer review committee also so we (me and the boss) can know what's on the EMT's mind as far as why the moral is so low and get some suggestions as they won't come talk to us individually. But I'm not sure how to start this as far as putting on paper the Review Committee's resposibilites. Can you email me a copy of yours? I am very interested.

Thanks

suebrotton@centurytel.net

[NewportMedic]

Please add me to list for a copy of the peer review. We are a small combination fulltime and paid volunteer dept. We have a great group of people but do have some issues of our own. Looking to find ways to get people working on the same page or at least on the same chapter as everyone else. If anyone has ideas drop me an e-mail. Thanks!!!

newportfirefighter@comcast.net