OneBlood, Inc St Petersburg, Florida, United States
Background/Case Studies: A large southeastern United States blood center hosts several education programs, including a Blood Bank Technology (BBT) training program, Specialist in Blood Banking/Transfusion Medicine (SBB/TM) program, and several University based Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) programs. The objectives of these educational programs are to further career progression for blood center employees and to fill vacancies for open positions that require specialized education and certification. Smartsheet is a Project Management software utilized by several blood center departments to track the progression of projects, share documents, and organize work (Figure 1).
Study
Design/Methods: Filling open Medical Laboratory Scientist (MLS) positions has been a nationwide challenge over the last few years. To help combat this challenge, the completion time on the blood center’s BBT program was reduced from a part-time, 6-month training program to a full-time, 3-month program. This means that all of the steps in preparation and execution of the expedited training program has to be well organized and details planned in advance to be successful. Smartsheet was implemented to support this initiative. First, all necessary tasks and associated deadlines/timelines to launch the BBT, SBB/TM, and other MLS training classes had to be identified, as well as the historical timeline required to complete each task. A draft schedule of all tasks was created in Smartsheet, working backward from the certification exam dates. A multi-level interview process was also added into the process. to ensure the leadership team only met with the most qualified candidates. This was an effort to save time and to become more selective on which candidates were admitted into the program. our aim was to accept the candidates that were most likely to be successful in the program and in the MLS field. Using Smartsheet, the schedule was modified to include a second round of interviews.
Results/Findings: Organizing the administrative steps for onboarding new BBT, SBB/TM, and MLS classes increased the number of business days between student selection, and permitted an additional round of interviews, which allowed executive management time to better vet the candidates. Conclusions: The use of SmartSheet Software for scheduling has benefited the education department. Breaking down required administrative tasks in a timeline helps schedule multiple educational programs in a year and provides leadership with a visual representation of the workload required.
Importance of research: The educational programs hosted by this blood center have a fast turnaround time to assist with the national Medical Laboratory Scientist (MLS) shortage. The importance of this project is to ease the strain on all parties involved in onboarding an educational program.
