Quality-assured online selection for securing future health professionals

在新冠肺炎危机期间，医疗服务提供商在确保可持续劳动力方面面临着越来越大的压力。但是，社交距离禁止了个人接触，因此传统的面对面面试方法不再可能用于选择工作角色和培训。对于将NHS员工保持在120万人，以及通过大学发展这一队伍来说，这一影响可能是灾难性的。大学每年面试超过10万名申请医学、护理、助产和相关健康专业教育项目的申请者。NHS雇主和大学在过去15年里一直使用面对面(F2F)面试方法，称为多次迷你面试(MMI)，用于医疗选择过程。MMI提供了一种强大的方法，旨在最大限度地减少偏见和增加多样性，使其得到英国健康教育的认可。MMI包括一系列6至12个站，每个站持续5至10分钟，不同的面试者事先不知道应试者，在一个定时的巡回。在每个车站，考生根据评估预定义属性和值的真实事件回答场景。MMI目前不可行，因为需要消除个人接触，导致被迫接受并在夜间适应视频会议等在线技术。在没有在线MMI的情况下，必须采用各种临时方法，以确保NHS服务提供和医疗保健学生培训的候选人选择的基本连续性。Sammi-Select正在为领先企业现有的Innovate UK项目开发MMI的自动化版本。拟议的项目将加强这一活动，从而产生一种全新的能力，展示与在线视频会议工具相结合的核心Sammi-Select系统的关键部分。其结果将是一种能够解决当前医疗选择危机的独特技术。为了确保健康，Sammi-Select团队将通过其广泛的网络和跨医疗专业的联系人参与，包括英国医学院理事会、皇家助产士学院、欧洲助产士协会、护理、助产士和联合健康专业人员院长委员会和英格兰健康教育。英国和美国各地都建立了几个试验台，也致力于支持Sammi-Select。拟议的项目将极大地利用现有项目中先前的公共投资，并提供额外的资金。维持基本医疗服务的提供从未像现在这样紧迫，拟议的技术将使候选人能够以一种稳健和有质量保证的方式进行长期选择。延长Impact资金期限将通过加快和降低两个视频会议插件-Zoom和Teams的准备程度-来增强现有的在线面试情报系统，支持医疗保健专业的持续招聘。用户测试的范围和范围将扩展到已经热衷于该项目的多个试验台站点。这将利用吸纳的可能性，从而缓解由于社会距离限制而继续感受到的招聘压力。

Health Service providers are under increasing pressure to secure a sustainable workforce during the COVID-19 crisis. But social distancing has prohibited personal contact and therefore traditional face-to-face interview methods for selection to job roles and training are no longer possible. The impact is potentially catastrophic for maintaining the workforce at 1.2 million NHS employees as well as for developing it through universities who interview over 100,000 applicants annually for medicine, nursing, midwifery and allied health professional education programmes.NHS employers and universities have used a face-to-face (F2F) interview method called multiple mini interviews (MMIs) for healthcare selection processes for the last 15 years. MMIs offer a robust approach designed to minimise bias and increase diversity such that they are endorsed by Health Education England.MMIs comprise a series of 6 to 12 stations each lasting 5 to 10-minutes with different interviewers, who have no prior knowledge of candidates, in a timed circuit. At each station, candidates answer scenarios based on real-life events that assess pre-defined attributes and values.MMIs are not currently feasible with the need to remove personal contact resulting in forced acceptance of, and over-night adaptation to, online technologies like videoconferencing. Absent online MMIs, various improvised approaches have been necessarily adopted to ensure the essential continuity of candidate selection for NHS service provision and healthcare student training.Sammi-Select are developing an automated version of MMIs in an existing Innovate UK project for leading enterprises. The proposed project would strengthen this activity, resulting in a brand new capability demonstrating key parts of the core Sammi-Select system integrated with online videoconferencing tools. The result will be a unique technology capable of addressing the current healthcare selection crisis.To ensure fitness for purpose, the Sammi-Select team will engage through its extensive networks and contacts across healthcare professions including UK Medical Schools Council, Royal College of Midwives, European Midwives Association, Council of Deans for Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals and Health Education England. Several test-bed sites are established across the UK and US are also committed to supporting Sammi-Select.The proposed project would significantly leverage, and provide additionality to, prior public investment in the existing project. Maintaining essential health service provision has never been more pressing, and the proposed technology would enable candidate selection for the long term in a robust and quality assured way.The extension for impact funding will support sustained recruitment to healthcare professions through accelerating and de-risking readiness of two videoconference plugins - for Zoom and Teams - to augment an extant online interview intelligence system. Scope and range of user testing will be extended across a multiplicity of test-bed sites that have already keenly engaged with the project. This will leverage likelihood of uptake thereby easing pressures in recruiting that continue to be keenly felt due to social distancing restrictions.