Answer: 

Both hospitals and schools voiced to NEONI a concern early on in the project investigation phase (2005) regarding the number of delays and mounting frustration both parties experienced in getting “final” answers to the availability and final approval of clinical site placements. Many schools said they were waiting up until shortly before the semester started to find out if clinical site placements were available or approved.  Similarly, hospitals were deluged with phone calls from a number of schools still seeking placement or confirmation of such.

Using StudentMAX™ allows both parties to see what is available (since hospitals still maintain control over their pre-existing placement agreements) 24 hours a day in real-time to quickly confirm placements or request any open or new placement opportunities. Schools can also confirm their clinical site placements with a variety of hospitals.  NEONI assumes the gatekeeper function so that requests are answered in a timely manner and once a placement request is approved by the hospital, to make the change in the database which appears as the placement listings on the website.  Allowing each participant to change their own listings would likely create more confusion and chaos since there would be no regulation of the process.    

In addition, all information for a clinical site placement request is filled out completely before it is forwarded to hospital/clinical partner facilitators. This eliminates confusing or ambiguous requests.  NEONI assures the completeness of each request to the hospital, and based on the hospital’s decision, will send the school an approval or decline response. All parties can be assured that the most up-to-date listing of committed and open clinical sites is on the website so that unnecessary and repetitive requests either by phone or e-mails are not made to hospital facilitators.