Southeast Nebraska AHEC Database

Southeast Nebraska Area Health Education Center (SE-AHEC) is a non-profit organization located in southeast Nebraska, whose mission is to recruit and retain health care professionals through innovation, education and collaboration. We are governed by a local Board of Directors and focus on improving the quality, geographic distribution and diversity of the primary health care workforce (e.g., physicians, physician assistants, nurses, dentists, behavioral and mental health providers, and other public health professionals) and eliminating the disparities in our state’s healthcare system. To achieve these goals, we partner extensively with other organizations in our area, including public health departments, hospitals, educational service units and resource centers, local health providers, Chambers of Commerce, K-12 grade schools, and two and four-year colleges and universities. Southeast Nebraska AHEC paid for the development of a Microsoft Access database that is used to track all the individuals SE-AHEC touches, as well as all of the events we host or participate in. The information gathered in the database is then used to analyze the populations we serve so that we can develop effective and successful programs, expand our organization’s reach, and for federal and state reporting and policy purposes. Our annual “touch” count is over 5,000 individuals and growing every year. Our desired level of data collection is at the individual level; we collect:· Program participants’ names and demographics:o Ethnicity/Race;o Gender;o Address and phone numbers;o County of residence;o Date of birth;o School(s) attended or employer information; ando All events that the individual participates in. The activities for which we can collect individualized data are those that require participant applications. This would include student health career fairs, regional 8th-grade science meets, youth summer camps, continuing education for health providers, students and teachers, and job shadowing for high school students. This level of individualized data, and the ability to create a myriad of queries, allows us to track these students over time and to watch their progress through high school and into college. It is vitally important for us to know where students are going—if they choose a health-related career directly out of high school, or declare a healthcare-related major in college, or matriculate to a graduate or health professions program of study. Another facet of our mission is working with health professions students who are completing community-based clinical rotations in rural or underserved portions of our service area. We collect individualized data on these students and then go several layers deeper as we collect information about the rotations. We are required to collect information about the discipline of the student, the type of rotation (primary care or specialty), the location of the rotation, its length-both in hours and weeks, and the type of clinic facility. We also collect individualized information on the preceptors that work with the students, including their contact information, medical specialty, and any special information such as when they are willing to take students, do they have a preference of the school the students is from, and so forth. Then, for the rotation site itself, we track what services and benefits are available for the student. For instance, is housing provided and if so; is it in a private home, an apartment, or an on-call room in the hospital? Will students have access to the hospital cafeteria for meals or will they be required to take care of their own nutrition needs? Will students have ready access to the internet during their rotation time, does the clinic/hospital provide scrubs or white jackets for the students, and so forth. These students may do multiple rotations with us, so we need a way to track that activity as well. We must also track where these students are as they start their careers. As you can imagine, trying to maintain the range of information that is required for these students and their rotation sites would be truly impossible without our Access database and the ability to do created querying. For programs that are too large to collect individual data efficiently, such as community health fairs, back-to-school events, and classroom presentations, we collect aggregate data such as number of attendees, and approximate breakdowns of age, gender, and race or ethnicity. This type of data helps us understand our audience and tailor programs to the larger needs. We also use the database to collect contact information for teachers, school counselors, and event speakers; listings and details of all of the events that we host or participate in; and a listing of all of the schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, and other partners in our area. Before our database was set up and functional, our organization had to manually collect and count data. In essence, Microsoft Access has given our organization the ability to optimize our mission. Through the efficient storage and retrieval of data and the number of tools available, we can manipulate our data into a format that meets not only our many needs, but also the requirements for federal grant reporting and state policy development. We must show that our programs are top notch and effective. We need to show that Southeast Nebraska is making an impact in development of the health care workforce in Nebraska. As you can see on the attached file, I have displayed illustrations of various screens developed in our database. Also included, is a report developed, which is date-generated from the main menu screen. We develop queries to manipulate needed data for many reasons, such as, supporting our requests for legislative funding, tracking students for future follow-up, completing the annual Uniform Progress Report/Comprehensive Performance Management System (UPR/CPMS) Federal report, tracking student clinical rotations information, and collecting event participant listings. Microsoft Access has made our data collection easier and much less time consuming, making the collection, storage and analysis of data a manageable task. Without it, we truly would be unable to complete our mission.

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