Complete Control – Even of Student Absences

The Oekumenische Institut für Pflegeberufe in der Ortenau gGmbH (Ecumenical Institute for Nursing Professions in Ortenau non-profit limited company) was founded in 2005 and has its headquarters in Offenburg. In cooperation with 80 partners, the Institute provides training for some 300 nursing and geriatric nursing students, many of whom can be found working throughout the country. Numerous further training courses round off the institute's portfolio. When it comes to conducting all these training measures, they rely on the seminar management software from easySoft.

Sonja Mutschler-Prater, together with Nurse Ratmunda who was the school director at the time, helped launch the educational institution. From the very beginning, the School Director has relied on easySoft to plan and implement her students' class and work schedules. "We were convinced by the performance of the software," she says. All the more so after the Institute had to switch for a short time to another program that was being used by the new school board. "There were hardly any synergies as a result of the use of the common software," Ms. Mutschler-Prater sums up the interim solution and has since returned to using the software from easySoft for the past three years. "It is much more transparent and functional," reasons the School Director.

Working together with Walter Anton as co-directors and a team of 18 instructors and three office staff, she implements an extensive training and development program. "We are the only educational institution in the nursing sector to also offer two integrated training programs," reports School Director, Walter Anton. And this has proved to be very popular. Student numbers have doubled since 2005. At present, the Institute has about 80 partners who cover the practical part of the training.

While most of the nursing students come from the Ortenau region, the catchment area for the geriatric nursing students extends from Freiburg right along the Rhine to Karlsruhe. The Institute even plans and manages assignments nationwide for its students as a result of their cooperation with MediClin AG, which operates more than 50 clinics, homes and care centers throughout Germany.

The special module easySoft. Education is utilized in Offenburg for maintaining the master data, scheduling classes and managing rooms as well as managing the students and scheduling their training. "A uniform database ensures that we have full control of our planning, right down to media management in the individual classrooms and nationwide student work assignments," emphasizes Ms. Mutschler-Prater. Of particular importance for the School Director is the ability to generate essential analyses with the easySoft software. For example, she has recorded the student absences in the program. "We check these numbers regularly to prevent things getting out of hand. Because if students miss too many lessons or work days, they will have problems with admission to the exam," she says. For this reason, students are notified if it gets critical.

The Institute is helping shape the future of nursing with its training programs for combined geriatric, public health and medical nursing or combined geriatric nursing and disability care and intends to continue developing its activities with easySoft. "We receive more and more applications via email. Soon we will use the software to integrate this information automatically as well as manage the application process," says Ms. Mutschler-Prater. This not only alleviates the burden on the administrative office, but also avoids possible entry errors during data transfer. In the future, students will also have access to the program area for class schedule management, as is already the case for instructors.

"The aging society poses new challenges for nursing," states School Director, Walter Anton, who also co-authored the reference book "Altenpflege" (geriatric nursing) published by Thieme-Verlag. Therefore, training must undergo continuous development and content must be adapted accordingly. "Our jobs are becoming more and more demanding and professional software programs are essential for carrying them out properly," according to Mr. Anton. He praises not only the modular design of the easySoft solution that can be adapted perfectly to individual requirements but also the competent support services.

It is particularly important to the management duo that their suggestions flow directly into the further development of the program and that they are able to exchange experiences with other users at the user days. Managing Director for easySoft, Andreas Nau, also values this important feedback from the easySoft community, "It enables us to identify new requirements at an early stage and continuously improve the program." Staying in constant contact with the users is a good remedy for a company's own blindness.