How to Successfully Stand Up a Clinic Schedule During a Global Pandemic
Annie Peach,
Client Success Manager
When the world was turned on its head by the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew there would be a need to allocate thousands of physician hours across the country to mass vaccination and assessment clinics. After being met by a ton of demand, we quickly turned around staffing solutions and added software functionality that helped our clients meet the constantly changing needs of their staff and patients.
We relied on our MetricAid teams - Client Success, Implementation, Training, Client Services, and Development - to lift these schedules off the ground. By allowing MetricAid to manage COVID-19 vaccination and assessment clinic physician schedules, hospital admins, ED chiefs and physicians were able to retake hours spent on admin work and redirect that time to focus on patient health.
How did we implement new clinic schedules in record time?
The first step was to inventory the clinic’s needs and to make sure the workforce was ready to start. Gathering this information fell to our Client Success Manager, Annie Peach, and our Implementation Manager, Katie Sloat, who then coordinated the onboarding of the team, which in some cases included hundreds of providers within the scope of the clinic.
While the clinics had similar goals, their scopes varied dramatically from small clinics within hospital departments to stand-alone and mobile clinics. Some had predictable schedules while others had schedules that changed every day. For the clinics to function successfully, our team had to understand the ins and outs of each site; what the schedule templates look like, who can work what shift, how long the clinic should run, what permissions are required, and what qualifications are required.
Though the onboarding of these clinics was unique, the process followed today is the same. Client Success and Implementation meet with all new clients to ensure that their needs are inventoried, understood and implemented.
How to train remote users?
Our training team, led by Sam Kurtzer, created site-specific onboarding and training materials for all of our new users. Her team took the following steps to ensure that everyone was fully trained and all users were comfortable maneuvering through the software:
Arranged regular, virtual drop-in training sessions for both physicians and administrators
Recorded webinars and instructional material to embed in the MetricAid portal
Attended faculty meetings virtually to answer questions and demonstrate how to use the MetricAid platform
We learned so much during the pandemic and have since changed many of our processes. Our training team is now expert in the virtual onboarding of hundreds of new users. At any time, any of our clients can log on to our website and request a one-on-one or group training session.
How does excellent client service ensure a better experience?
For us, the work doesn’t stop once the client is onboarded. Our Client Services team, led by Steve Hicks and Shelley Willis, is with our clients every step of the way.
The COVID-19 clinic physician schedules, in particular, were a test for our team’s agility and they aced it! As no two clinics were the same, and each presented its own challenges and wins, it wasn’t unusual for our team to pivot at the last moment to meet the requests for adjustments.
As with our training processes, our Client Services team has adapted as a result of the pandemic and is now used to the ever-changing needs of our clients. By phone, email, and webchat, they field hundreds of questions and communicate directly with users to fill shift vacancies and facilitate changes.
If you have questions about physician scheduling feel free to get in touch. Our experts are happy to support you and provide advice!
How does excellent client service ensure a better experience?
The MetricAid web application was key to the success of our support for COVID-19 assessment and vaccination clinics. The Development team, led by Brad Simard, dedicated time and resources to expanding the scope of our tool and added functionality in response to the changing needs of clients.
The MetricAid software helped to facilitate quick changes and create schedules that accounted for the constantly evolving circumstances such as COVID-19 exposure, last minute-shift assignments, and external work obligations.
The result?
We’re proud to have participated in the monumental effort to protect against this pandemic. In the Greater Toronto Area alone, the clinics we supported conducted on average 250 COVID-19 tests per day and administered over 250,000 vaccinations. As we all know, the challenges presented by COVID-19 are not yet over and we will continue to support our clients as they adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of patients.
If you have questions about standing up and supporting a clinic or would like help scheduling your physician, please give us a call, as always, we’re here.
For more information, contact support@metricaid.com or call us at 1-844-529-5577
Cheers,
Annie Peach
