Problem
Raechel Holmes at Claremont McKenna College tells us one of the biggest hurdles they face while completing baseline testing is the volume of about 500 student athletes all reporting to campus around the same time. This is because the student-athletes are not usually on campus over the summer. When all the athletes report at once, it becomes impossible for Raechel and the Claremont McKenna staff to baseline test everyone at once. Prior to utilizing Sway, coaches of fall sports would need to plan over two hours to complete baseline testing; winter and spring sports would wait until closer to their in-season start dates. Once all athletes had finally completed a baseline test, Raechel says the athletic training staff would have to create a report and upload it into each athlete’s profile in their EMR system, taking weeks of their time. The cumulative time the staff spent on baseline testing was immense and taxing.
Solution
Moving to Sway allowed the CMC staff to utilize the platform in its organic nature for exactly what their campus needs. Sway offers the ability to remotely baseline on a phone, which Raechel has capitalized on by sending team codes to the athletes via their EMR system over the summer. Now, the athletes have completed baseline testing before they ever return to campus. This has also been incredibly beneficial for the winter and spring sports because they now have an up-to-date, accurate baseline test completed from the beginning of the year. Raechel says they “now feel more confident completing evaluations to make informed decisions if needed, because even though they may not be in season, there is still a possibility of hitting their head in other ways”.
Though testing remotely has an added benefit of a convenience factor, it doesn’t allow for the athletic training staff to help facilitate instructions that allow for best testing practices, such as putting the device on “do not disturb”. Raechel ingeniously created a video of herself facilitating a test, talking the athlete through instructions, and demonstrating the test. This video accompanies the team code and has led to “more accurate baseline tests and overall easier to collect the data” says Holmes.
Codes and the video being sent via the EMR system is capable because Sway directly integrates into the system. This pairing makes the documentation process immediately easier. Before, each individual PDF would have to be uploaded into each athlete’s profile. Now the information is automatically in the file and allows any member of the staff to have access to the entirety of the injury timeline from baseline testing to post injury testing. Being a small DIII university, the Claremont McKenna Athletic Training Staff is comprised of five athletic trainers, that Raechel tells us are not assigned to specific sports. When an athlete sustains an injury, any athlete on staff can see the progress, allowing them all to be on the same page.
Conclusion
Switching to Sway has given Raechel and the entire CMS staff crucial time back between both baseline testing and documentation, saving weeks of time. She knows that even baseline testing is taking a fraction of time, it is still “providing data in line with meeting current requirements”. With that, Raechel says that in the first few weeks of utilizing Sway, the customer support was “above and beyond helping them use the platform in a way that works for them”; she also stated “having a specific Sway representative to ask questions has been invaluable”. Raechel says that all of these factors have allowed the CMS staff to “step up the overall management” of their injury process