Tracking CoAEMSP Student Minimum Competencies

This is a plain-language summary, not official guidance. CoAEMSP's own documents, linked at the bottom, are what counts. If something here doesn't match them, follow CoAEMSP.

What the SMC is

CoAEMSP has long required accredited paramedic programs to track and report minimum competencies across age groups, complaints and skills. That used to be the Student Patient Contact Matrix. CoAEMSP and the National Registry formed a workgroup that revised it into the Student Minimum Competency (SMC) recommendations. They apply to students who enroll in a paramedic program on or after January 1, 2023, and programs were allowed to adopt them earlier.

The SMC is organized into tables for:

• Patient ages
• Conditions (pathologies and complaints)
• ALS skills
• The capstone field internship
• BLS skills

It also includes formative assessments. Your program decides the order and format of those. CoAEMSP and the National Registry plan to review the SMC every four years, so check CoAEMSP's site for the current version before each new cohort.

You set your program's minimums

The numbers in the SMC are recommendations, and this is the part I see people miss most. Per CoAEMSP:

• Your program sets its own requirements with its communities of interest.
• Those requirements have to be approved by your program medical director and endorsed by your Program Advisory Committee.
• You can set minimums above the recommendations.
• You can set minimums below them only if you can show your graduates are competent, for example through certification exam results and graduate and employer surveys.
• Whatever minimums you set, every student has to meet them to complete the program.

So the first tracking task isn't logging anything. It's writing down your program's numbers, getting the medical director's approval and the advisory committee's endorsement, and keeping that record where you can find it at a site visit.

The one report CoAEMSP asks for

CoAEMSP says the final Summary Tracking worksheet is the only SMC report it requires. You can document the student experience any way you want: paper, spreadsheets or software. But summary tracking for each cohort has to be reported in the format of CoAEMSP's spreadsheet.

In practice that means whatever you use day to day needs to roll up cleanly into that worksheet. If your daily records use different categories than the worksheet, someone ends up re-sorting a semester of paper by hand. Set your categories to match the SMC tables from day one.

Where it ends: the terminal competency form

At graduation, CoAEMSP Standard III.B.2.a calls for a terminal competency form for each graduate, signed and dated by the program medical director. It attests that the graduate completed all terminal competencies the program requires and showed competency in the cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains. CoAEMSP publishes a form you can use. If you use your own, it has to include the same attestation.

Your medical director is signing that statement for every graduate. Good minimum competency records are what let them sign it without guessing.

Habits that keep tracking under control

These are practical suggestions, not CoAEMSP requirements.

1. Write your definitions down before the cohort starts

Decide what counts and write it in your clinical handbook: what counts as an assessment versus an observation, what a successful team lead looks like in your program, whether simulation counts for a given item and how it's marked, and who is allowed to sign. Students and preceptors log more consistently when the rules are on paper.

2. Get it signed the same day

A record the preceptor signs at the end of the shift is easy. A stack of forms brought back two weeks later is hard, and some of them never get signed. Whatever system you use, make same-day sign-off the normal path.

3. Look at gaps monthly, not at the end

Some categories are harder to fill than others depending on your clinical sites, often specific age groups or conditions your partners don't see much of. If you check each student's progress against your minimums once a month, you have time to move a student to a different site or add a rotation. If you find the gap in the last month, you don't.

4. Keep formative and summative separate

Practice attempts in the lab and graded competency checks serve different purposes. Mark them differently so nobody has to sort them out later.

5. Keep the paper trail for a site visit

Keep the approved minimums, each cohort's Summary Tracking, the signed records behind it and each graduate's terminal competency form together and easy to pull.

A short checklist

1. Download the current SMC and Summary Tracking worksheet from CoAEMSP.
2. Set your program's minimums; get medical director approval and advisory committee endorsement.
3. Write your definitions (what counts, simulation, team leads, who signs) into the student and preceptor handbooks.
4. Set up your logging so categories match the SMC tables.
5. Require same-day preceptor sign-off.
6. Review every student against your minimums monthly.
7. Report Summary Tracking for the cohort in CoAEMSP's format.
8. Complete a signed terminal competency form for each graduate.

Sources

• CoAEMSP, Student Minimum Competency (SMC) Matrix Recommendations, effective January 1, 2023 (webinar page and background slides)
• CoAEMSP, Student Minimum Competency Recommendations: Are you ready?
• CoAEMSP, Terminal Competency Form (PDF)
• CoAEMSP, CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines

CoAEMSP accredits programs, not software. Precept is built to meet CoAEMSP's tracking requirements; it isn't approved or endorsed by CoAEMSP.