Receiving Coordinator - Orientation to Data Structure on HSPnet

1. Introduction to HSPnet Data Structure
The diagram shows the high level structure of HSPnet data under the category of Agencies.

PLACING Agencies (PA) have the following data tables:

• Student Database – a single database per educational institution

• Departments – a staff database, typically one for each faculty or discipline in a Placing Agency. Includes records for Placing Coordinators, Student
Administrators, and Instructors.

• Courses (practica) – represents a requirement for a placement in an educational Program.

• Programs – a set of activities leading to a degree or certification such as Bachelor of Nursing or Pharmacy Technician.

• Curriculum – the set of practicum courses that are required to complete an educational Program.

RECEIVING Agencies (RA) have the following data tables:

• Departments – a staff database, typically one for each major site and/or discipline. Includes records for Receiving Coordinators, Destination contacts, and Supervisors/preceptors.

• Locations – separate but related tables for – Sites (e.g. ABC Hospital) – Services (e.g. Home Care or Pharmacy), and – Destinations (e.g. Community Mental Health Team or ICU)

Managing Setup Tables: Site Maintenance

Definition: A Site is typically a building or placement location with a unique address, such as a hospital, health centre, or office. If an agency has a large number of similar sites, such as public health offices or mental health teams, these may be combined under an “umbrella” site rather than listing each physical location separately.

Examples:
• Hospital ABC is setup as a site, and each unit or program is setup as a Destination (Unit 44, Outpatient Physiotherapy, Diabetes Clinic).

• “Community Health” is setup as an umbrella site, and each health centre is setup as a Destination (Centre1, Centre2).

Guidelines for Setup of Sites:

• New sites can be added by HSPnet Help Desk only. Once a site is added, the Receiving Coordinator/Local Administrator can modify the site setup, for example to update the site name or correct the address. Duplicate sites became an issue in some jurisdictions, which is why HSPnet support now has this role: to prevent duplication of sites.

• Each Site has an online profile, to be maintained by a Receiving Coordinator/Local Administrator.

• Health authorities may request to add a Site to their agency if it is owned/operated by the authority (i.e. under the legal responsibility of the health authority’s board). Independent sites, that may receive health authority funding but have their own governing board, should NOT be added under the health authority; these Independent or “affiliate” sites should be maintained under their legal entity (e.g. Providence Health) or under a separate umbrella agency such as “Long Term Care – ABC Region." 

• Creation of duplicate sites or destinations, especially for a specific discipline or organizational portfolio, is NOT recommended. Duplicate Sites and Destinations cause confusion for educational programs and affect reporting and data analysis for all users.

The best practice set up is to add additional services to a single destination so that each type of student is documented as being placed at the one destination.

For example: at the 5 East Medicine inpatient unit, RN and LPN Program student nurses would be placed under the service Medicine; Administration can be added to the destination to facilitate finding, placing and tracking Unit Clerk students; Advanced Practice may be used for the Nurse Practitioner students, and Physiotherapy may be added as the service used to place Physiotherapy students who are placed on the unit 3East. The document: Reporting: Portfolio Roll Up provides a way to handle the reporting function.

Managing Setup Tables: Service Maintenance

Definition: A Service is defined as an area of practice or activity at a site. In other words, a Service is the type of work done on a given Unit..  An HSPnet service can be associated with one or more placement destinations such as a nursing unit, clinic, or administrative area. Destinations may also have multiple students, depending on the students they consider.

Examples of services include: Medicine - Inpatients, Home Care, Mental Health - Community, Physiotherapy, Social Work, Music Therapy (see glossaries for a full list).
HSPnet Services are standardized across Canada to enhance sharing and comparability of data within and across provinces. An online glossary provides definitions and examples for each Service.

Guidelines for Setup of Services:

• In their role as RC, Local Administrators add and remove Services from a Site.
A Service cannot be removed from a Site if it has any Destinations – removing a service is done in the reverse order of adding a service. Any active placement requests would have to be moved or cancelled or declined before the service can be removed.

• A Service should be added to a Site as needed, so that it can be added to destinations that consider students in that specific service. Please see the Service Glossary for guidance. Schools may search for placements based on service, so it is important to add a service to a destination, such as administration if they consider clerical placements, even though the primary service on the unit may be MedicineIP. Another example: The unit may be obstetricsIP, but they may also consider Massage Therapy students, so the service of Massage Therapy should be added too.

How to Documents:

1. Add, inactivate or reactivate a service at the site level.
2. Services - Add or Remove a Service from a Destination
3. Update the Service Contact (Receiving Coordinator).

Managing Setup Tables: Destination Maintenance

Definition: A Destination is typically a physical location where students are placed, for example:

• An inpatient unit or outpatient clinic.
• A wellness program at a health centre.
• A private pharmacy or physiotherapy clinic.
• A school or community agency (e.g. daycare or recreation centre).

Each site has a master list of Destinations, and each Destination is then added to one or more Services. For example a multi-disciplinary health clinic can be added to the Service of Clinics, where nursing students are placed, and to the Service of Physiotherapy, where students from Physio and Rehab Assistants are placed; and Administration may be added to process the Medical Office Assistants, and advanced practice may be added for Nurse Practitioner students.

Guidelines for Setup of Destinations:

• RC Local Administrators can add or edit Destinations for their allowed Sites, and can add Destinations to one or more of their allowed Services.
• Destinations are managed in the Destination Maintenance screen:
• Add the Destination to the Site
• Add the destination to one or more Services that use the Destination, and assign a Destination Coordinator/Destination Contact for each service.
• To change the Service of a Destination, e.g. to move Unit 44 from medicine to surgery, the RC must first add the Destination to the Service of medicine and then remove it from the previous Service. The Destination cannot be removed from a Service until all current or upcoming placements are re-pointed to the new Service.
• Receiving Coordinators and Destination Coordinators can edit the online profile for Destinations within their access rights.

How To Documents:

• Agency Profiles.
• Destination Profiles.
• Receiving Agency Maintenance: Managing Services and Destinations. (How to deal with a closing destination or changing service at a destination: create a new destination and move the placement requests, then inactivate the old destination).

Managing Setup Tables: Department Maintenance

Definition: A Department in HSPnet represents a staff database within an agency.

In a Receiving Agency, a Department encompasses:

• All staff at a small site – e.g. ABC Residence.
• All staff in a region by discipline - e.g.Pharmacy – XYZ Health District, or
• All staff in a discipline for large sites - Hospital 1 Nursing, Hospital 2 Nursing.

Guidelines for Setup of Departments:
• HSPnet users are granted access to one or more Departments that must be structured to provide adequate separation of staff information. An HSPnet user should be permitted to edit only those staff records that are appropriate for his/her organizational mandate.
• Each staff record may only be entered in one department, and so a combined department may be required if staff may work in multiple locations - or the destination coordinator will need access to more than one department in order to assign staff from another department.
• Users with Local Administrator rights can add or edit Departments, as may be required when splitting a large department into smaller site-specific databases. When a Local Administrator creates a new Department, it is automatically added to his/her access rights. The local Administrator who created the department is able to add Departments to the access of other users who need it.
• Each Department must identify one or two Department Contacts who will authorize new user accounts at the Local Administrator level. At least one Department Contact should be a non-user of HSPnet at a senior management level such director or VP. The second Department Contact may be an HSPnet user at the Local Administrator level, who may then authorize other Local Administrator users with the same access rights (or less) within her allowed Departments, Sites, Services and Destinations.

How To Documents:

Add a new department.

2. Staff & User Management

Staff records may be entered without consent from the staff member. Staff Records have some mandatory fields:

• First & last name. (if the staff has only one name, put the name in both fields).
• Role (e.g. Destination Coordinator, Supervisor); note an individual can have more than one role - e.g. a DC can also be a supervisor. In addition to staff names and role.

The following additional fields are highly recommended to support communications within and between agencies:
• Email address. (work e-mail address).
• Office phone including local/extension (L).

Only business contact information may be entered unless you have staff consent to enter their personal email address or phone number in HSPnet.

Staff Profiles:

• Staff profiles can be used to enter other business information such as site, service and destination where they work.  Staff profiles can also be used to enter information that would require a staff consent form be signed: such as certifications, immunizations etc. 

User accounts may be created on a "need to know" basis only, based on the individual’s organizational role (Receiving Coordinator, Destination Coordinator or Supervisor) and limited to disciplines and Sites/Services/Destinations where they are involved on a day-to-day basis. User access is determined through a combination of Role + Access Level + Special Settings. RC Local Administrators are permitted to create user accounts at the Regular level.

Training materials for Destination coordinators and Supervisors will be linked to their online help when they log in. New Receiving Coordinator users need to complete the RC online training. Only Help Desk can upgrade a Receiving Coordinator account to Local Administrator, upon completion of the new RC training quiz.

Related Guides:

Create a Staff Record (no user ID).

Create a User Account (Issue a user ID to log into HSPnet).