FISDAP

FISDAP is an Internet-based data collection system used by schools across North America to track EMS student progress in their clinical and field internships. FISDAP measures experiential learning, sparks critical thinking, organizes shift schedules, and collects data used in muti-institutional educational research. Various reports and graphs are available to display the collected data including a report that tracks the National Standard Curriculum goals.

The FISDAP process is simple. Every time an EMS student makes contact with a new patient, that student uses the computer to enter information about the nature of the experience that just occurred. FISDAP tracks the patient's chief complaint and demographic information, and the scope and nature of the skills performed by both the preceptor, ambulance crew/hospital staff and the student on the particular encounter.

Home page: http://www.fisdap.com

THE HISTORY OF FISDAP

FISDAP was the brainchild of a couple of Emergency Health Services instructors at Inver Hills Community College's (IHCC) EHS Degree Program. Frustrated by the unrealistic hour-based requirements of previous paramedic field internship programs, the IHCC faculty and medical director began seeking objective ways to measure the experiential learning that occurs during ambulance shift ride-alongs. The result was FISDAP.

The project began in September of 1996 in San Antonio, at the National Association of EMS educator's (NAEMSE) first annual conference. IHCC faculty attending the conference discussed the problems with collecting accurate data on field internships with other educators. In particular Century College, Northwest Technical College, and Youngstown State University faculty were interested in participating and helped create the first data sets.

The first data began to be collected in September 1996 by using a Microsoft Access database over a Novell network within the IHCC campus. Soon however, there was an interest in using the project to collect data from multiple institutions. We wanted to increase the scope of the project to increase its applicability and significance. We also wanted to encourage multi-institutional research by EMS education agencies. This type of research is unfortunately scarce in our profession.

Thanks to a grant from the Minnesota State College and University System (MnSCU) in 1997 IHCC was able to get funding to expand FISDAP via the Internet. IHCC teamed up with the founders of Headwaters Software to develop the Internet version of FISDAP. When the MnSCU grant period ended FISDAP became a fee-for-service system. Student accounts are charged a one-time account fee to cover maintenance and improvements to the system.

If you are interested in learning more about the inner workings of the FISDAP system please go to our Help section. If you are interested in getting your program started with using FISDAP please refer to the Instructors page and the Getting Started page.

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