Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our next webinar, where we are going to discuss how to navigate the sonography education pathway. My name is Jamie Warren. I am part of the CARE Transformation Team here at MedAxium. Just some housekeeping moments here first. I've got to get my mouse to work. There we go. At the bottom of your screen, you'll see a button for chat. This is where you can find the link to access the presentation that is going to be presented today. And then over in the right hand, you will see for the Q&A, this is where you can enter in any questions that you may have or comments, and we will be able to answer these at the end of the presentation. So let's start at the very beginning and what we look like today, our current state when we're talking about our cardiac and vascular sonographers. So first, we are seeing a significant staff shortage across both of these imaging modalities. And it will also say that this is not just in the adult world, but it also falls over into the fetal and pediatric space. The American Heart Association will say that 42% of our hospitals report insufficient number of sonographers. And I would actually challenge that number and say that that is much higher today if we did a survey across our members. The other thing that we are seeing is a significant increase in the use of travelers. And this is very costly, and it is hitting the budgets within the department. There is no consistency with staffing, and we are starting to see some quality-related issues being seen. There is significant access issues when we're talking about getting a patient scheduled for an echo study or a vascular ultrasound. And then diving down a little deeper with our decrease in the imaging quality, with that turnover of our teammates or of our employees, and with bringing in travelers who are not familiar with our protocols, we really are seeing a decrease in the quality of the images that the reading physician is receiving. There is also limited availability to review the quality metrics. And then we're also seeing that there is a need for an increase in the technical competency requirements. And then lastly, we're no longer having a pipeline for an incoming pool of new teammates, new sonographers. We're seeing where there is very limited opportunities, limited brick-and-mortar education institutions providing ultrasound programs. And then these departments that are staffed with travelers do not have the capacity to train or take on a student. So now we kind of hit the pause button, and we think, how can we change this? How can we really take what we've learned today and apply how we can make changes to educating our staff, our sonographers, to be able to then change the pipeline of having them coming in? And I like to always use this Albert Einstein statement of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So we've been in this pattern of, okay, we'll build these brick-and-mortar schools, and we will have different ultrasound programs across the U.S., but we've seen that this doesn't really help us or become an effective manner in providing this education. So what we will talk about today is changing how we are thinking, how education is given, and this is going to start with what I say, removing the walls. So what do we really need? What is really going to turn this upside down? What we need is a sustainable pipeline of new sonographers that are going to meet our staffing needs in the facility. So a lot of times when we have a brick-and-mortar school, this can oversaturate a specific market, but where there is not a brick-and-mortar school, you become unsaturated, and then it's hard to get those students to move to a different location. The other piece is that healthcare facilities have ownership in finding their students versus casting this open net through job postings. So it's this, let's post a position and kind of cross our fingers and hope that we get multiple candidates that apply, but what we find today is that they're not applying for our positions, and so this is about changing the thought process of who is going to help in finding that student. In the program that we're going to talk about today, we're going to talk about a student-to-teammate philosophy, and this is where the healthcare facility is really partnering with that student to provide the education and tuition reimbursement. I'd like to say that our partners in healthcare nursing have done a great job of doing this and providing educational opportunities and being able to find candidates, both internal and external, and then being able to partner with them. And so this is us being able to take lessons learned from the nursing community and applying it over in sonography. And then lastly, the healthcare facility is part of the student journey from the very beginning of the employment. So with our pathway, we are looking at right today, we have our sonography shortage with very limited educational pathways and students. From there, our cardiovascular members with MedAxiom are going to be able to gain access to an online accredited sonography program. Once the student has enrolled and completed their education from a didactics or classroom setting, and then from a clinical piece, they will graduate with an advanced certificate in sonography, and the biggest piece here is being eligible to sit for their sonography boards. But what this is really doing for the MedAxiom member, for our cardiovascular member, is putting them back in the driver's seat of being able to manage the staffing resources in their ultrasound departments. And then it develops into our future state that our supply is able to meet the demand that we need. So what is different about this program? We are going to be able to offer a 100% online program where the employer is basing where the clinical sites are. So if you have a student, they will perform their didactic or classroom work online, and then they will come to your echo or vascular lab to perform their clinicals. The actual cardiovascular facility is going to own the process of finding their students and enrolling them into the program. We'll talk a little bit more about this in the next couple slides. The accredited online sonography program is going to meet the eligibility requirements for the student to sit for their boards. And that accredited piece is very important. And this allows them to have the easy button to be able to meet the requirements of sitting for the two different boards that are associated with each of the ultrasound modalities. And then the last piece here that makes the biggest difference is that we're now again making that cardiovascular member have control over stabilizing their own workforce. So with this, we have partnered with Washburn University to provide the didactic piece and the clinical affiliation pieces to have the student graduate from an accredited program. Going through this with the med axiom piece, we are also offering additional tools and resources to our members to make this a very successful pathway, that at the end you have a sonographer that is able to join your team and hit the ground running. So in this, you will also have access to a finder student toolkit, a student to teammate roadmap, special pricing for med axiom members with the educational program, and then setting up your locations as a clinical site partnership. In that toolkit, we have multiple documents that are provided to you as resources. It starts at the very beginning with helping you find your student from both an internal and an external perspective. This is about looking at setting up some shadow programs. It provides a step one, step two, step three, and how to be able to get a program like this up and running. And then also with starting a summer internship program. This is about creating a competitive program for your high school students or early college students to come in and shadow within your department, gives you an opportunity to see them, gives them an opportunity to see what ultrasound is all about. From there, we have student applicant discovery forms. And this is about making it very easy to apply and know all of the information up front that is required. We've also provided some information on clinical site expectations and how to make your clinical site successful with the students, especially as we are in the staffing shortage. There are contracts, templates that you can use for student to teammate pathways. We've also provided job descriptions. And then lastly, we have a staff staffing calculator that you can use to determine if you need an additional sonographer and how many to plan for. So next steps. So first, you need to determine how many of these sonographers that you're going to need in the upcoming school year. From here, it is preparing an educational budget for each student. To save your spot, we will have 50 seats in the upcoming program for fall of 2024. And to save your seat in either the cardiac or the vascular track, you will make a $3,000 nonrefundable deposit per student that will guarantee a seat in the program as long as you have a qualifying student applicant. From there, you will gain access to the MedOxium sonography education pathway toolkit. All of those pieces that we just discussed in the previous slide. The enrollment to save your spot is October 23rd. So just in a few weeks, you want to pencil that in on your calendar. This will be the first available date that you will be able to go in and save your spots. This program will start in fall of 2024. So it's important to go ahead and start calculating how many you think you would need to get started in this next school year and then start to save your spots. The student application process. So first, you're going to locate your student. This may be internally or externally. They are going to request an unofficial transcript to ensure that they have met their prereqs, and we will go over those in the next couple slides. You're going to complete and submit the student discovery forms to Washburn University, and the last drop date for that is May 1st of 2024. Then once the student has been accepted into the program, Washburn University will assist the student in enrolling into the program. The clinical sites, so your site where they will be doing their hands-on training, will be required to complete a clinical affiliation agreement. And then also identifying who will be working or who is responsible for the student's clinical experience. So what's included in the payment? So once the student has been accepted into the ultrasound program, the remaining balance will be invoiced to the MedOxium member in a one-time payment of $17,000. This is going to cover 100% of the program tuition. MedOxium will then manage the payments back to Washburn University and to the school. Now what this does not include is textbooks, background checks, simulation lab access, and some other miscellaneous fees. These estimated costs are right around the $1,000 mark, and it is up to the MedOxium member if they want to reimburse the student or make this part of the student's responsibility. But the $17,000 will cover 100% of the tuition payments to the school. So what happens if you're not able to find a student by March 1? And this is a qualifying student. You just need to notify MedOxium, and you would be able to roll your save seat over to the following year of 2025. And this really falls into two buckets. This is one, I haven't been able to find a candidate at all, or two, the candidate that I found was not accepted into the program. So I would recommend that as soon as you identify your student, that you go ahead and start the process of filling out those discovery forms to see what is needed to make them a qualified student. So program details. This program through Washburn University offers two separate tracks, one in cardiac or echo, and one in vascular. The program is accredited, which ensures that your student would be eligible to sit for the ARDMS or the CCI board exam at the point that they graduate from the program. It is three semesters back to back, so fall, spring, summer. And then the students will graduate with an advanced certificate in sonography. And again, they will either have that in cardiac or vascular. Now, two things that are very interesting about the Washburn University program is that the student could continue on with Washburn for a few additional courses, and these are online, to receive their associate's degree. And if they want it to continue on, they're about halfway through getting a bachelor's in medical imaging. And again, all of these classes are available online to them. The fall 2024 cohort is going to start in mid-August. From a student perspective, when you're talking to potential candidates, they do have to meet some prereqs. And these are basic courses that can be completed at any college institution that college credit is transferable. So this may be your local community college. This may be an AP course that they've completed in high school. This could be a brick-and-mortar university or even an online program. The important part is, is that it's considered a college credit and that it is transferable. So they will need to have a communication class like English 101 or a speech class. They will be required to have a human anatomy and physiology class, a mathematics class. And I say this is kind of like in the middle for the math. So not the basic math and not all the way up into calculus. But they will need to have algebra, intermediate algebra, and math. Physics, we'll come back to that in just a moment. And then medical terminology. Usually out of this list, most candidates are able to get these courses either online or through one of their local schools. But the physics one we have found has been one that's a little harder to find and be able to complete. So Washburn has been a great example of this. It's a great example of how you can do this. So the physics one we have found has been one that's a little harder to find and be able to complete. So Washburn has been able to offer this class every spring. So if you have a candidate, they can enroll at Washburn in this eight-week class and be able to complete that requirement. Clinical requirements of your site. So there's really two components here to think about. One, there is a minimum number of studies that have to be completed in a year for cardiac, and that's 800. And for vascular, that is 1,000. But the second piece is that there must be at least one sonographer on staff full-time that has the credentials that is appropriate to cardiac or vascular. A couple of additional resources that we are going to provide to the clinical sites and to the students. So one of the things that is a little bit of a con when we start talking about an online program is that the students no longer have that option to sit down at lunch and do shoulder-to-shoulder and kind of talk with the other students that are in the class with them. So at MedAxium, we are going to provide them an avenue to do that. We will have regular Zoom calls where they will have the ability to just come together and meet each other and have discussions about any items that have come up about their didactic classwork or their clinical experience. And then it will also be a place if they have any questions about specific items within the echo or vascular with their training. We will also be able to provide them additional resources if they need additional reading material or any additional questions from that aspect. The other piece, the clinical sites, so those that are responsible for the students, will also have a regular call where they can come together and talk about things that they're seeing in clinic or if they have a question or something that they see has come up, they will be able to work with their peers that also have students through the U.S. So as we close out with our presentation here, our goal at MedAxium is to take your sonographer that's here in the left-hand picture and then turn it into a team of people that are able to support you in your sonography department. So I know that was very quick. We are recording this particular presentation and you are able to download these slides from today. I will say I am here to answer any and every question that you have about the sonography education program and pathway and have my email here on the screen. So if you have any additional questions or if you would like to talk specifically about your program, that is why I'm here and would be more than happy to help with any questions. So we'll see if we have any questions that have come in during this presentation. All right. So just a reminder down at the bottom of that screen, you'll see the Q&A little chat box. Go ahead and click that and feel free to submit any questions. We want to give them a couple minutes, Jamie. Otherwise, we should be good to go. Okay, we have a question. The first one is where do I get the slides, you'll see those in the chat. There was a second part to that though that said pediatric echo question mark. So we're in the process of discussing adding on a pediatric echo component. Please watch for further information to come soon about that. Okay well if you all think of any additional questions or again as you're looking at your own programs or if you would like to set up a meeting to talk with your administrative team about how to get this set up and started and my email is here on the screen and would be would love to the opportunity to talk with you.

sonography education pathway

staff shortage

online accredited sonography program

clinical training

advanced certificate in sonography

healthcare facilities