The QA reviewer has the power to gradually increase or decrease the quality of run reports submitted by crews company-wide.
The only way to bring up report quality is to fail the bad ones, period.
When you fail a report back, we recommend you take the time to explain your objections; don't rely on the built-in summary text. Every objection can be a teaching moment, provided that your word choice does not put the crew member on the defensive.
It's up to your agencies policies and your own discretion to determine how detailed crews' reports need to be.
Make sure your crews understand that their QA fail rates are monitored.
Crew members can see their own rates when they view their Employee Self-Edit page. Supervisors, meanwhile, can view these reports:
You may consider having supervisors meet with the lowest-performing employees every month, review the reports together, and set expectations for improvement over the coming month.
If you are putting in the effort to explain each objection, and attempting to turn every error into a positive teaching moment, it may be beneficial to escalate the matter as an incident.
The incident system is always open to all employees. As a QA reviewer, you may wish to use the system to raise your concerns to management... and by using the incident system to do so, you create a permanet record that may be useful later.
If you increase your QA failure rate, it may increase the days-to-bill, because run reports are taking longer to graduate from QA to the billing office. Management may notice the delay, worry about a drop in cashflow, and demand an explanation.
The slowdown of the revenue pipeline will be temporary because every EMT and paramedic can be trained to write a good report. It does not require special talent, it just requires training (or a mentor) and discipline (from within or without).
Mentoring is an excellent way to quickly increase the quality of run reports. You probably have some crew members who write good reports, who can be counted on to teach others. When you fail a report back to a crew member who is struggling, notify the relevant supervisor (or submit an incident record) that a mentor is needed. You can also use the "QA Reviewer Comments" box to direct the crew member to seek out a specific mentor. If the supervisor can then arrange to put the trainee and the mentor on shift together, then the mentorship will happen in the field, requiring no additional time on the clock.
If unsatisfied with the pace of improvement, consider adding a negative motivation: ask the crew member's supervisor to set a deadline, and if the deadline is missed, the crew member will be demoted to wheelchair van duty, or suspended, or switched to part time.
Anyone can learn how to do it right. In the experience of AngelTrack LLC's own counselors, it takes 2-4 weeks to bring all crews at a company up to standards. The exact timeframe depends on how many good mentors you have to start with, and the strength of the public support from management.
Low-quality reports can hurt the company in five ways: