CASE STUDY
Overview
Training the next generation of clinicians is important work. Cultivating a strong pipeline of talented, practice-ready individuals is not only critical for your organization – but for the future of health care itself. With so many health system and school stakeholders involved, it can be very complicated with many moving parts.
Each day, more than 20% of the nation’s hospitals transform into dynamic classrooms hosting a wide variety of learning experiences. While one unit is working with pre-licensure nursing and medical students, another floor is training advanced practice providers and allied health students. And let’s not forget the ongoing rotations from visiting residents. Keeping it all organized – from applications and onboarding through to scheduling and evaluations – remains a challenge for many health care organizations nationwide.
This case study highlights how hospitals and health systems can streamline the entire clinical education experience for students, staff, and administrators alike.
Background
Valleywise Health has been serving Phoenix, AZ, and the surrounding area for more than 140 years. It is a nationally recognized health system that has achieved many important milestones – including the state’s first medical residency program. As a large public teaching hospital that hosts hundreds of medical and allied health students for clinical rotations each month, the organization was struggling to scale these operations as demand grew.
This case study explores how Valleywise Health transitioned from an outdated process that no longer served the organization to an integrated clinical education management system using Clinician Nexus’ Education Suite platform. The move was driven by the need to streamline complex administrative processes and improve the management – including scheduling, reporting, evaluations, and more – of student rotations and clinical education experiences. Additionally, the organization was looking for a better way to assess rotating medical students as possible residents.
To help ensure residency program growth and facilitate high-quality learning experiences, Valleywise Health was committed to implementing significant changes to how it managed this process. The hospital previously utilized a legacy Microsoft Access database system that required extensive manual input and lacked efficient data processing capabilities. The staff and students were also conducting various onboarding and scheduling activities via email – which made important details and documents difficult to track and manage. This process was not only cumbersome but also limited in its ability to meet the administrative demands of a busy teaching hospital.
These challenges included:
Manual Data Entry and Tracking
Clinical site coordinators were manually entering and updating student data and details into the system. This included contact details, demographic data, rotation dates, department assignments, and more. This process was not only time-consuming but also prone to human error, which led to frequent data discrepancies, scheduling conflicts, delayed onboarding, and poor communication. Additionally, as the number of students and rotations continued to grow, this process was no longer tenable.
Inefficient Reporting
Generating useful records and data was incredibly labor-intensive. For instance, administrators were regularly tasked with compiling information on clinical rotation schedules and student attendance records for reporting purposes. This required them to sift through piles of paperwork and manually count rotations and student hours – which could take several hours or even days to complete. Regular liaison with the Health Information Management/Medical Records department became increasingly difficult.
Limited Access to Information
The previous system only provided very basic information, such as student names and the departments they were assigned to, without any details about the specific areas or roles within those departments or the level at which those students were operating. This lack of detail made it difficult to manage and tailor the educational experience to the needs of both the students and the departments and individual preceptors.
Difficult to Support Compliance and Manage Private Data
The administrative burden was significant when it came to managing compliance and ensuring all necessary paperwork was complete for each student’s rotation. This involved multiple checks and coordination with various departments to ensure all requirements were met before students could begin their rotations. Additionally, the organization was handling a substantial amount of personally identifiable student information via email. With greater vulnerability to unauthorized access, the organization was at risk of exposing private data.
These challenges highlighted the need for a more robust and efficient system to manage these complex logistics well into the future.
Approach
Valleywise Health sought a comprehensive solution to transform its clinical rotation management process. After assessing several potential platforms, the organization selected Education Suite – where it could manage all clinical learners in one place – to help address critical operational needs.
“Creating a dynamic, engaging and adaptive learning environment is one of our highest priorities. Tools and processes that enhance experiential learning and foster clinical education while reducing unnecessary workload are welcome at our organization. This system has improved the quality of work life for both our staff and our students.”
Dr. Michael White | Chief Clinical Officer, Valleywise Health
At the outset of the project, the primary goals were to:
- Optimize and automate data collection and management
- Improve tracking and reporting capabilities
- Reduce administrative burden on staff
To support these efforts and help ensure minimal disruption during the transition phase, the organization assembled a team of key stakeholders to provide input and drive the planning and implementation process. This included a dedicated project manager and various hospital administrators, department heads, and IT specialists.
The group first met with Clinician Nexus’ Product team to communicate the organization’s unique needs, establish the vision for the project, and discuss desired outcomes. In addition to understanding the best use of the platform, they also discussed a critical integration with Valleywise Health’s IT Workflow software that would help to improve how students were granted access to important IT functions and electronic health records.
The Implementation team worked alongside Valleywise Health’s staff to understand the project’s scope, timeline, and journey through to launch with both the health system and their affiliated programs. Lastly, Valleywise Health spent time with the Customer Success team to learn more about post-implementation support and ongoing partnership with Clinician Nexus.
Outcomes
After moving away from manual processes and outdated systems that were no longer able to support the scale at which it operated, Valleywise Health was able to gain back greater control and centralize its approach to clinical education management across the entire system. Clinician Nexus’s platform empowered the organization to manage all clinical learners within a single platform and resulted in several positive outcomes beyond what was additionally intended.
Aligning with the project initial goals at the outset, Clinician Nexus helped Valleywise Health to:
Streamline Administrative Processes
With Clinician Nexus, the need for manual data entry was significantly reduced as the system automatically populates and updates student profiles with necessary details. Student application and onboarding automation functionality eliminated the need for manual input from the clinical staff, helped to decrease administrative burden, and reduced the risk of errors.
Clinician Nexus also enabled more robust reporting capabilities in a matter of minutes. Valleywise Health can now generate comprehensive report on student rotations, department allocations, and compliance statuses within minutes. This makes it easier to liaise with key departments and to respond to requests for information in a timely manner.
Clinician Nexus provides detailed insights into each student’s rotation schedule, levels, and specific departmental assignments. For Valleywise Health, this information was previously vague or unavailable. This level of detail improved the scheduling and tracking process by ensuring that students were appropriately matched according to their educational needs and the capacities of the departments. Now, clinical site staff can see where students are on a single dashboard. It also helps to maintain compliance with affiliation agreements and various regulatory requirements by ensuring accurate and timely documentation of student activities and rotations. This is crucial for Valleywise Health given its status as a teaching hospital and the need to maintain stringent educational standards.
Additionally, alignment with existing systems and functionality was key. Clinician Nexus’ integration with ServiceNow, Valleywise Health’s system access request tool, which facilitates a seamless transition for students between different departments by automating the issuance of ID badges and access permissions, helped Valleywise Health to streamline another complex administrative process and reduce the risk of data breaches.
“Before we partnered with Clinician Nexus, we were using an antiquated database system to manage student information and couldn’t access the level of detail we needed for basic reports. We were also sending important documents and onboarding and scheduling details out via email. The process lacked structure and our day-to-day work was overwhelming. Clinician Nexus enabled us to centralize all these critical functions into one platform – which has transformed how we operate. I’ve been a clinical education coordinator for more than 20 years, and this has changed my work life more than I ever could have imagined.”
Mary Ellen Watson | Medical Education Coordinator, Valleywise Health
Enhance Efficiency and User Satisfaction
Notable improvements in operational efficiency marked a milestone for the clinical placement team. Tasks that once took hours now take only minutes – resulting in valuable time saved. This enables the team to focus on more critical and high-value work to enhance the educational experience for students and staff alike.
Staff satisfaction also increased due to the platform’s extensive functionality, ease of use, and user support. It optimizes their roles for greater efficiency and productivity by allowing them to access and analyze information quickly. While there is always a learning curve associated with adopting and implementing a new system, Clinician Nexus provides training and support to help ease this transition and makes ongoing adjustments based on staff feedback to ensure the system continues to meet Valleywise Health’s evolving needs.
Conclusion
While implementing an advanced technology solution may seem challenging, the benefits are substantial. By integrating Clinician Nexus into its daily operations, Valleywise Health was able to transform its approach to managing clinical rotations and educational experiences. A process that was once unwieldy and difficult to manage, especially as the organization grew, is now centralized, fast, and effective – contributing to better educational outcomes and greater administrative control.
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