July 26, 2021

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Highlights

Challenge

• Accessing NBME data on NBME website difficult and time consuming

Solution

• Dashboards for NBME, CBSE and Subject Exam
• Implementing Analytics by Acuity Insights to integrate data

Results

• Administrative time savings for data entry and search
• Ability to identify struggling students
• More time to spend supporting the students who need it

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Deep dive

Mercer University’s School of Medicine is based in Macon, Georgia. The School of Medicine (SoM) was established to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the healthcare needs of rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Their goal is to provide Georgians who live in these communities access to care delivered with skill, attentiveness and the highest level of integrity.

Mercer University has three campuses. The full four-year M.D. program is offered on the Macon and Savannah campuses. Years three and four of the M.D. program are additionally offered at the Columbus campus. 

To ensure a high level of integrity with the curriculum, Mercer wanted to verify the consistency across all campuses. To achieve this, they divided up the student base and assigned student affairs staff to work with a group of students from one specific campus. This resulted in a need for data so the student affairs team and faculty could check performance and filter information by campus. 

More time to support students instead of making reports

It was clear to Mercer University SoM that the need for, and importance of, a data warehouse with analytics and reporting was growing. However, they didn’t have the resources to build their own system to help them integrate data from multiple sources in order to get a complete understanding of each student’s learning performance per campus. Thankfully, they were already using Acuity Insights and were familiar with their team and capabilities. Mercer University knew it was the right time to engage with the Acuity’s expert team and its Analytics solution. 

In the spring of 2019, Mercer integrated the data for exams, grading, admission systems and course evaluations across campuses without the need to add technical resources to their staff. They can now access reports with up-to-date data easily and automatically without manual data collection and sorting to find the information needed. They can monitor students through their educational journey and cross-compare year-to-year. 

The ‘wow’ moment came when the Mercer Academic Success Counsellors and Medical Education departments were able to see student-specific information filtered by campus. With permissions set by specific roles, the Academic Success Counsellors can view grades, NBME® scores and exams yet they cannot see admissions data or evaluations of clerkships. The Directors and Associate Deans in Medical Education are able to provide review and generate reports on trends for cohort comparison across campuses. “The ease to access this data is so helpful,” said Misty Graham, Academic Success Counsellor. “Now I can spend more time actually working with students and supporting them. Plus, I know I’m focusing on the students who need my support. It saves me a lot of time,” said Graham.

Spotting trends from filtering NBME® by student and campus

The second part of the challenge was incorporating NBME® scores. Mercer was looking for a way to have a full picture of data without gathering multiple spreadsheets and manually sorting data that may not be completely up-to-date.

Using Analytics, NBME® scores are now automatically pulled into a dashboard. It gives Mercer the opportunity to monitor student performance across student affairs, student success and medical educational teams. By having the dashboard pull pertinent information, it’s easier to spot trends across cohorts and clerkships.

In June 2021, Acuity Insights held a workshop for Mercer University’s Academic Success Counsellors to show what is possible with technology. “I was so excited when I saw how easy it was to sort the data and look directly at my group of students,” said Misty Graham, Academic Success Counsellor. “Finding NBME® scores and having to remember the date the student wrote the test just to sort the data is very time consuming and such a manual process. With Analytics it is so much simpler, I could never go back to manually seeking out the data.”

Real-time performance results means faster student support

With Analytics, Mercer University is able to immediately identify the students with low performance results after each assessment milestone. With a quick list in their hands, they can proactively support students by identifying areas of concern and create a plan for remediation.

Another way Mercer can check performance results is if there is a significant change in a student’s performance, even if it’s not yet reaching a low-performance threshold. For example, a student that is typically in the 90 range and has dropped to the 80s can be quickly identified. Responding to unexpected changes in performance is equally important as identifying low performance in students. 

“Analytics by Acuity Insights has been a powerful tool for Mercer University’s School of Medicine, saving significant time for staff and administration and allowing more time to be focused on working with students.”

Misty Graham, Academic Success Counsellor

Ultimately, Mercer University SoM is able to support its students and monitor cohort performance across campuses more effectively than ever.

If you’d like to meet with a member of our team to see firsthand how Analytics can help your MedEd institution, book a demo.