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CS/BU Staff of the Month Return - August, 2008 Sara Eischen Sara Eischen has worked with the Minnesota Heart Study as the Field Supervisor since November, 2006. During this time, Sara works closely and communicates effectively with the MHS principal investigator, the MHS study coordinator, and the ECRC clinic supervisor to ensure that this extremely large study is run as smoothly as possible. In addition, she supervises the student supervisor/van driver, the MHS participant recruiter, a part-time field supervisor, the data processor, along with other numerous part-time office staff. Over the 1.5 years she has been with us, she has worked with approximately 45 full- and part-time field interviewers. To train the MHS field interviewers, Sara has either participated directly or overseen 5 major hiring, training, certification and supervision of each interviewer to be certified to conduct adult and child home interviews in English and in Spanish. This hiring process requires an interview, 2-3 weeks of training, several hours of certification work, and initiating the interviewer to actually go out and start field interviewing. Sara in incredibly detailed and direct, which makes her an excellent field trainer. Field training and certification takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. Once the staff has started the actual field work, Sara begins weekly meetings with each field interviewer to provide support and motivation, as well as remaining available to them as they are out in the field during evenings/weekends. In addition to this, she oversees the quality control of each interview. Since field interviewing is difficult work, Sara's on-going challenge is to find good people, train them well and keep them motivated to do what is necessary. Unfortunately, there is a high turn over rate in these positions. Sara needs to keep the staff motivated, while recognizing when it is just not going to work. Sara did a lot of research to find out how to help automate MHS by researching and selecting both a new scanning process and the use of Treos (a way for the field staff to schedule appointments and a way to call if necessary). These additions have added efficiency to the MHS study, but have come with their own time consuming issues. Sara holds the MHS field staff to a high level of customer service, makes sure the staff observes all necessary protocol and quality control needed in the field. Sara holds the data collection to a very high standard and to that end makes her tasks quite difficult. In addition to Sara's regular responsibilities, she is a great resource to the other MHS staff members. The Minnesota Heart Study is so lucky to have Sara as the MHS Field Supervisor! ~~ Do you know of someone who should be recognized for excellent service?
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