Field Training and Evaluation Program (FTEP)

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Comment by mike on April 10, 2009 at 6:43pm

I am an Operation Supervisor and Training Officer for a hospital based 911 EMS and back country rescue service. Attached to our EMS service is a well established EMT training program. Currently our state certified training program follows the EMT-I/99 DOT curriculum. However because of our states extensive EMT-I scope of practice our Intermediates are trained to the paramedic level. This requires the EMT-I student’s field internship to be at the paramedic knowledge level though actual skills performance and clinical evaluation are at the EMT-I/99 level.

The problem I have as a training officer is I am limited in the clinical options for field training due to our rural location.. I am in need of a busy system that is willing to host 4 students (not necessarily all at the same time) for pre-hospital clinical rotations. The ideal scenario would be an ALS transport service but I think the interns would gain a lot from an ALS squad based QRV system. My objectives are simple: get them volume and acuity before they certify to work in a system that runs < 1,300 calls per year.

Each intern will carry (as employees of the hospital) their own liability insurance as well as a strong training support system.

If you think your service can help please leave contact info in this forum and I will get back to you immediately.

Thank you in advance

Mike Hudson NREMT-P

Comment by David Spafford on April 5, 2009 at 12:29pm

Skip,

Very interesting, the organization I work for uses an organized FTO program that is left up to interpretation by local management. Our specific operation is lacking in oversight and follow through. Most people that require additional field training time fall through the cracks and are approved for the raod long before they are ready. I would be interested in learning more about the FTEP program and joining an FTO association.

Comment by David E. Courter on March 22, 2009 at 4:31pm

Skip,
Thanks for the invite!

My organization does not use this type of training but recently we have been tosing the idea around, so your timing is great. I will be very interested in reading info from those that are following a FTEP style program. Dave C.

Comment by Jodi on March 22, 2009 at 10:29am

EMS SPSMSAR is uses this to an extent.

Team Leaders are responsible for documenting a EMS team member in
training’s performance and drafting a remedial plan for each members monthly training and evaluation.

Entrance to SAR is unified trained. We need members be only trained to county level with our Medic One protocols. Then we start the 4 month evaluation.

Daily is each 24 shift . We have 8 shifts a month. We review each month with training leadership as we all have a chance to review the member in the field. Results are then given to the direct supervisor and they review the feed back with the member.

We follow the ICS of 1:4 in our field work, the supervisor at this level is also in the field and maybe partners with the new member. At that time they can observe employee performance directly.
3 negatives evaluations in 4 months they are asked to retrain or are asked to leave.

Comment by Skip Kirkwood on March 22, 2009 at 9:29am

The Wake County EMS System has just completed two one-week FTO schools and graduated 32 newly qualified Field Training Officers.

Some 15 years ago, a group of us in the Oregon EMS system attended a law enforcement Field Training and Evaluation Program (FTEP) school. Upon completion, we worked on adapting that well-established model to the EMS world. Recently it seems to have grown some legs in the EMS community.

FTEP is an organized approach to training new employees in to an agency. It involves formally trained and designated FTOs, utilizing an agency standard toolset consisting of three pieces:

STANDARDIZED EVALUATION GUIDELINES, which set forth objective evaluation criteria for those areas the agency deems critical to effective employee performance - cognitive, psychomotor, and affective.

A PHASE GUIDE, which lays out the timing and milestones for mastery of knowledge, skills, and behavior over the course of the FTEP.

DAILY OBSERVATION REPORTS, which document the recruit's performance over each workday.

The whole program is based on FTEP as was developed in the 1970s by the San Jose, California, police department, and which is widely used by law enforcement, telecommunications, and corrections agencies throughout the United States.

How many EMS agencies are using a similar program? I was thinking that maybe we should develop an association for FTOs and FTO programs, but I've since learned that that the National Association of Field Training Officers (NAFTO) would like to have EMS participation.

Thoughts from the community?