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Automated Matching

Reduce the complexity and length of time it takes to match students and preceptors with the Automated Matching module. Implement this cost effective solution to save time and resources

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Overview

The Automated Matching module is used to successfully match students with preceptors based on a set of predefined, configurable rules. Administrators identify the session and course schedule and load the students and preceptors. Profiles for both groups are submitted and then the automated matching begins, based on factors in both the student's and the preceptor's profile.

Why?

  • Reduce the complexity and length of time it takes to match two individuals
  • Automate the matching and scheduling process based on profile preferences
  • Decrease the dependency on hospital and university staff to collect and disseminate information

Who?

  • Hospital administrative staff
  • University administrative staff
  • Students and teachers/supervisors

Features

  • Organize sessions using course schedule and rotation blocks
  • Customize email templates for students/supervisors with the possibility to include schedules, assignments, student or supervisor personal information and a link to Google maps indentifying the training site for the student
  • Collect profile related information for both the student and the supervisor
  • Load profiles from an Excel file
  • Match parties based on a predefined algorithm (access, distance, secondary language and gender preference)
  • Ability to define multiple sessions
  • Define number of spots supervisor has available
  • Preview the matching results before committing the final assignments
  • Manually override matching assignments
  • Preview all students assignments in one single report
  • Preview all supervisor assignments in one single report
  • Send email notifications and reminders to both students and supervisor
  • Establish a date for notification emails to go out as well as the frequency and number of the reminders

Return of investment

LinkingHealthProfessionals Automated Matching module considerably shortens the time normally spent on manually matching students and teachers, significantly reducing the workload of your administrative staff.

You can optimize your matching process by:

Avoiding the collection of information for each individual involved

With the Automated Matching module students and supervisors complete their own profiles. All profile information is collected and stored in one centralized location, thus eliminating the necessity of compiling paper.

Reducing the number of phone calls required to confirm availability or appointments

Supervisors can choose their availability based on the time constraints of their busy schedule. Administrators no longer need to contact each supervisor to in order to determine their session availability thus freeing up time for other administrative tasks.

Decreasing the likelihood of inappropriate matches

The matching process is completed automatically taking into consideration factors such as access (car vs. public transit), distance (based on postal codes), secondary language and gender preference thus decreasing the chance of unsuitable matches. Administrators can override the automatically assigned matches in situations where special circumstances exist.

Eliminating the need to manage email lists

Since each individual enters their own email address into the system, administrators do not need to spend time managing various contact lists. The Automated Matching module provides the tools to create email templates enabling administrators to send directly from within LinkingHealthProfessionals the assignment results.

Case Study

Overview

Business Needs

Clinical experience plays a vital role in the education of healthcare professionals, especially for those who are studying medicine or nursing. As part of the clinical experience, the student and supervisor work together; the supervisor provides guidance and supervision, and the student grows professionally based on what he/she has learned from this interaction. Because of this important relationship, it is essential that an effective matching process be in place.

Solution

The Automated Matching module provides a way for a student to be paired with a supervisor based on four components: access, distance, gender preference and second language. When all of these criteria are met and the supervisor's availability is open, a match is made.

Benefits

An automated process eliminates the necessity for administrators to be involved in the task of actively searching for supervisors to pair with students. In a large class, the task becomes difficult to manage because of the exponential growth of all the variables on both the supervisor's and the student's side and the likelihood of incorrect pairings increases. With the need to manage the matching eliminated, administrators can concentrate on more important tasks.

Case

The Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta manages the largest physician residency program in the province. The department is unique in that it addresses the needs of various at risk populations in the core programs, rapidly moving it towards becoming a leader in primary care. The educational experience stresses the importance of a skilled clinician in a community based setting and the effectiveness of the doctor-patient relationship. Training opportunities are provided both in urban and rural settings and the supervisor-student affiliation plays a significant role in the overall education of the student.

Challenges

The process to match students with supervisors is a tedious and complex task for faculty administrators. It involves numerous phone calls to check the availability of supervisors; collecting student and supervisor preferences, ensuring that the pairs are suitably matched and disseminating information to all parties involved. A manual process can result in incorrect pairings, placing students with supervisors who don't have availability or matching students with supervisors who are geographically out of sync.

Solution

In an automated solution, profiles are created by the students and the supervisors eliminating the need for administrator involvement. LinkingHealthProfessionals sends automated email messages to students and supervisors requesting them to complete their profiles including a supervisor's availability. Once the profiles of all parties are completed, using a powerful algorithm, the system generates best matches based on access, distance, secondary language and gender preference, as well as the supervisor's availability. Final matches are submitted and all pairings receive email notifications advising of their assignments.

Benefits Realized:

In addition to improving the overall efficiency of the process behind matching students with supervisors, the Automated Matching module provides benefits in other key areas:

Timeliness

Introducing the automated matching module into your teaching environment can significantly reduce the amount of time taken to administer the matching of students and supervisors. As the entire process is automated from profile entry to matching to advising parties of final assignments, the amount of time required to complete the process is significantly reduced.

Accuracy

Using a powerful algorithm based on predefined parameters, the Automated Matching module eliminates inappropriate pairings. In the event of special circumstances, a manual override function allows administrators to create a more suitable assignment, thus increasing the overall accuracy of the matching with a minimal amount of administrative involvement.

Self-Serve Component

By providing the student and supervisor with a self-serve component for profile completion, the benefits are two-fold; first the profile information is stored in one central database, eradicating the need for administrative staff to collect and disseminate information to respective parties, and secondly, since the student and supervisor are entering their own information, data entry errors are reduced. Automated email notifications and reminders also do away with the need for numerous telephone calls, reducing the workload required to manage a matching process.

Reporting

Final assignment reports are available to administrators. The student assignment report identifies the student and their corresponding supervisor assignment, as well as the date and times of their learning experience(s). The supervisor assignment report contains the name of the supervisor as well as their assigned students for their available spots. Assignment reports can be filtered by session, timeframes and student/supervisor.

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