CaseStudies
How our customers have supercharged their SP program with MedBookr
For over 25 years, the SP Program has been a huge part of University of Aberdeen’s curriculum, helping students sharpen their clinical skills.
In recent years, thanks to their success in attracting students, Aberdeen’s program has gone through a huge evolution. Patient and student numbers have skyrocketed 200%… all the while operating with a 20% decrease in staff.
How is that possible, you ask?
We had a chat with Marie, the University’s Patient Program Manager to find out.
Marie Douglas
Patient Program Manager
The 40-hour work-weekend
When we asked how the program used to run pre-MedBookr, Marie replied with a laugh, “We had absolutely no usable system whatsoever.”
That’s being a little hard on herself – she did have a system. Just one that was very labour intensive due to the limited tools available.
As she explained,
“We had a massive master spreadsheet, but essentially every session was typed into an Outlook calendar, and we would then type who was booked into that into a word document which would be sent to the patients via the post. They would then tell us what they wanted to do by posting that back. More recently that was updated to email.”
“Then, I would make notes about all the stuff that didn’t quite line up. I spent up to 40 hours in my office from a Friday evening to Sunday evening once a term doing that, because it was the only quiet time to do it.’’
“Then we would type the patients’ individual sessions into word documents and email them that document and copy and paste that into the Outlook calendar and try to link the two together.”
Swamped with 1,000+ emails a week
As you might imagine, a system like that creates a lot of email.
To organize thousands of sessions a year, the team would send emails to 240 volunteers with attached scripts, scenarios, maps and times. Then, emails from volunteers would come back to change, cancel or query, which were then acknowledged by even more email.
And with all that back and forth…
“There’s no way you couldn’t make mistakes.”
No matter how good you are, when it comes to manual entry (never mind at this scale), it’s not a matter of if you make mistakes, but when.
As Marie said,
“We’re pretty good – we don’t make a lot of mistakes, but we are not perfect! Even back then, we didn’t make a lot of mistakes, but mistakes do happen. With all that email traffic, obviously we did make mistakes by missing a reply for example. There’s no way you couldn’t make mistakes.”
And as a result, there was…
– Fear of missing sessions
“If a session couldn’t run due to our mistakes it would have to be rescheduled in an already packed timetable and students’ learning would be interrupted. Thankfully we were never in that position, but that was the overarching fear.’’
Marie’s team & the university as a whole pride themselves on providing an amazing student experience (testament to being consistently in the UK’s top 10 medical schools), so the threat of missed sessions was a huge deal.
– Vexed Volunteers
Marie explained,
“You want the process to be as easy as possible for volunteers to volunteer as well as enjoying what they’re doing. We want to make sure that continues, and we don’t want anything that puts them off volunteering or makes it difficult for them to take part.
“If we’ve made a mistake, then we’ve potentially wasted their time, or worse, caused stress. Timing is important to volunteers; for example if the session has started ahead of the time we said and we’re then trying to rush them into the room when they arrive. Time changes or location changes were the most common thing and could get missed in emails.”
The search for a superior system begins…
Something had to change, so Marie tried calling in reinforcements during peak times. Alas, with such a complex system, it was almost impossible for them to learn the ropes quickly, so the main timetabling still fell to Marie, being more familiar with the patients likes and dislikes in sessions.
Microsoft Forms was also trialed, to automate some of the email traffic. Unfortunately, it was too complex for a lot of the volunteers:
“We tried Microsoft Forms for a while. We’re dealing with 240 PPs primarily in an elderly age bracket. For most this type of system is new to them and complex – the thought was that it would act as a calendar for them, but it wasn’t as user friendly as it needed to be. It’s fabulous within a team, with company emails and calendars but for external emails and calendars it was too complex. In the end we used it more as a booking system from our end. But ultimately It just didn’t work for what we needed.”
The Patient Program hits breaking point
Thanks to the hard work of Marie, her team, and the rest of the University medical staff, student numbers rocketed from 140 to 348, and activity within the PP Program doubled (in some cases, tripled) over night.
Normally, this might’ve been the occasion to pop open the champagne. But with staff hours reduced, and no suitable system to handle the intake numbers, the Patient Program was heading towards breaking point.
As Marie put it:
The Patient Program’s new workflow with MedBookr
With MedBookr, scheduling management becomes a breeze.
Now, instead of having to deal with up to 1000 emails a week matching PPs with sessions, PPs could book, change and cancel sessions themselves. All the team had to do was show them how to log-in, and then upload the information for each session for the PPs to choose.
Here’s how program runs now, as a result:
No More Phone Line
Without the need for phone calls, the phone started gathering dust, and eventually got chucked out.
“Phone lines were taken out. We don’t need them, we have internet calling for the odd times we need it, but it’s rare.”
Email Beast Tamed by 97%
Almost overnight, email traffic dropped off a cliff.
Instead of 1,000+ emails a week, the team now only answers the odd email from PPs double-checking that session details were correct.
“Success for me as a manager is reduction in our background admin workload and making processes more efficient. That’s what we want, and that’s what MedBookr gives us.”
Volunteers completely independent
With MedBookr’s easy-to-use self-serve portal, PPs no longer had to go through the team for resources, bookings or maps, taking a huge amount of email pressure off the team’s plate.
“It’s been so successful. Patients can independently book, cancel up to 10 days up front, and access everything they need to do within the system. They literally can just go on to the system and pick out what they need from the session that’s booked.
“People were getting emails going into junk folders and losing things, whereas now they just log-in to MedBookr. They could login even if they lost the reminder and find what they need.”
Happier Volunteers
With a reduction in email traffic and manual admin, the team could spend more time with PPs in person, getting to know them, and boosting morale of the Program as a whole.
“That’s what they enjoy,” she explained, “that we’re out talking to them. It’s a social activity for them, and we’re not just faces behind screens. We’re the Patient Partner Program, and we’re in partnership with the students, staff and each other.’’
No more 40-hour marathons for timetabling
One of the biggest wins was losing the big timetabling events. No more weekend marathons!
“It means we can get finished on time, and we can start on time, during a work week. It’s saved us an awful lot of time and can be done at our own pace, rather than a very stressful weekend every few months.”
Cut out end-of-term scheduling conflicts
With the size and complexity of Aberdeen’s PP program, timetabling had to be done in bulk, at the start of the term. This caused problems at the end of the term, when PPs were tied up with other commitments – grandkids’ pantos, for example – that conflicted with sessions.
‘’With MedBookr, we can now add our sessions whenever we like, such as 8-week blocks, which is better for the PPs so they don’t have to predict if they will be free to help 4-5 months ahead. Once uploaded to MedBookr in advance, that was it. No emails to send out because MedBookr sends automated reminder emails, and PPs would be able to access resources, timetables etc. through the portal.’’
One added bonus…
Takes the pressure off teaching timetabling at exam times
“It’s definitely allowing us a little bit more forward planning when it comes to exam times, especially when we’re already under pressure from teaching which is another admin intensive time. Being able to just concentrate on exam paperwork rather than a mix of teaching and exams has been a massive bonus.’’
And, although we can’t take credit for it…
The Guardian ranks Aberdeen University #1 in the UK for medicine two years in a row
“We take that as a massive success,” says Marie with a smile. “That’s only happened in the last 2 years, and that has been through student feedback. Student satisfaction is what we deem as success in the Program.
“As long as those feedback forms are coming back positively and seeing them enjoying their time with the patients getting that vital experience, that’s a win in every way.”
What Marie does with the time MedBookr saved
When we asked Marie what she does with all the time MedBookr’s freed up, she laughed.
“I get to drink my tea when it’s hot!
“In all seriousness, the uploading process of it still takes time, and we still get daily queries but much less, some days I don’t have any emails when I come in, which is amazing. It means the system is working and they can get what they need without emails, and we can focus on other things.
“We have seen a lot of change in the last few years. A lot of what we do is accompanying PPs around the campus, making sure they are happy ahead of their session, introducing them to tutors etc. Sessions involving PPs have skyrocketed, which is great! PPs are in demand which means they are doing a fabulous job of what they do. That is why we needed MedBookr, so that we can focus on training, and spending time making sure the PPs have the best experience possible to they can give the students their best.’’
- 1000+ emails per week, gone.
- No Phone Calls
- #1 in UK for medicine (Guardian University Guide)
- Happier SPs
- Satisfied Students
What would your SP program look like without calls, late nights or emails?
To find out, book a free demo by hitting the button below