Case Study - The Pre Hospital Emergency Care Council
Paramedic CPG Training Programmes
Background to the Project
The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) is an independent statutory body with
responsibility for standards, education and training in the fi eld of pre-hospital emergency care in
Ireland. PHECC’s primary role is to protect the public It is charged with the training of Paramedics
and Advance Paramedics in Ireland.
The aim of pre-hospital emergency care is to provide a comprehensive and coordinated approach
to patient care management, thus providing each patient with the most appropriate care in the
most efficient time frame.
In Ireland today, providers of emergency care are from a range of disciplines and include
Responders (Cardiac First Response, Occupational First Aid and Emergency First Response) and
Practitioners (Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, Advanced Paramedics, Nurses and
Doctors) from the statutory, private, auxiliary and voluntary services.
CPGs set a consistent standard of clinical practice within the field of pre-hospital emergency care.
By reinforcing the role of the Practitioner, in the continuum of patient care, the chain of survival
and the golden hour are supported in medical and trauma emergencies respectively.
CPGs guide the Practitioner in presenting to the acute hospital a patient who has been supported
in the very early phase of injury/illness and in whom the danger of deterioration has lessened by
early appropriate clinical care interventions.
The Brief
In September 2009, the Pre Hospital Emergency Care Council awarded a contract to provide
Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) upskilling training for Paramedics and Advanced Paramedics to
Dillon Productions.
The key focus of the project was to inform and educate the different practitiioners on the elements
and changes in the clinical practice guidelines.
Dillon Productions delivered the training through a multimedia platform that used
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Professional in-vision presenters
Professional voice-over audio
Bespoke video
Flash, motion graphics and interactive animations
Drag and drop word quizzes
Multi-choice questions
All of this resides on a custom designed LMS – The Phecc Online Training Academy. This training
management system is hosted on the Dillon Productions server.
Dillon Productions directly provide ongoing maintenance and support to PHECC for the Learning
Management System and continue to develop further online training courses for the client.
Dillon Productions also provided the initial training in the usage of the system for administrators
and we continue to provide ongoing online and telephone support for paramedic trainees who use
the system.
Report files which are outputted by the training system in .csv format as requested by the Pre
Hospital Emergency Care Council team are presented and read by their system.
Business Benefits
Previously, circa 2,500 paramedic trainees would have to be co-ordinated to be trained and
assessed in the theoretical elements of these mandatory standards in a classroom environment.
The CPG programme now resides in an online environment and individual trainees receive
training directly through the system. There are now over 1,900 paramedics registered to use the
system.
PHECC is forecasting financial savings in the region of €600,000 in 2011 for the National
Ambulance Service with the implementation of new e-learning programmes.
User Comments
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Really good and innovative approach to learning. More of the same please.Willie W
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Very well done, many Thanks. Dave F
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Very well constructed, highly interactive approach. I would like to see additional training materials
being made available through this medium. The pdf files associated with the different cpgs are very
useful. Thanks to all concerned. Greg S
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Excellent medium for training, I would be interested in seeing individual updates in operations and
cpgs posted as they are available this way as it would be published to a greater audience at the
same time. Diarmuid G
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Excellent programme of training, keep it coming Brian M
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I would love to see more in the near future, great way of upskilling and refreshing certain cpg’s.
Darren F
Client Comment
“As upskilling might be perceived as being somewhat dull it was very important that the training
programme captivated our audience. The online solution, developed in conjunction with Dublinbased e-learning solutions provider, Dillon Productions, has so far exceeded our expectations in
this regard. It has been warmly received and adopted by users to date, who find it not only
engaging but very easy to navigate through” - Barry O’Sullivan, Deputy Director and Registrar
Sample Slides
PHECC Learner Academy Page offers learners access to their own dedicated portal with CMS
capabilities to allow for a fully flexible and adaptable solution
The system has a dedicated, easy to use and intuitive learner portal which allows PHECC learners to
view course programmes scheduled to them and to directly access courses
Once logged on the online presenter guides the user through the course – acting as their online tutor
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more about that change. The change could be explained through a video clip, via a invision male
presenter, or through audio and jepg illustration. All of this is designed to surprise and continual
engage yet educate the audience
Summary slides reinfoce the key learning points pertaining to that clinical practice guideline
Interactive exercises help to further reinforce the learning
At the end of each module users have to complete a short assessment before they
are allowed to proceed to the next learning module