title: Residency applicants prefer online system for scheduling interviews.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Residency coordinators may be overwhelmed when scheduling residency interviews. Applicants often have to coordinate interviews with multiple programs at once, and relying on verbal or email confirmation may delay the process. Our objective was to determine applicant mean time to schedule and satisfaction using online scheduling.
  
  
  METHODS
  This pilot study is a retrospective analysis performed on a sample of applicants offered interviews at an urban county emergency medicine residency. Applicants were asked their estimated time to schedule with the online system compared to their average time using other methods. In addition, they were asked on a five-point anchored scale to rate their satisfaction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 171 applicants, 121 completed the survey (70.8%). Applicants were scheduling an average of 13.3 interviews. Applicants reported scheduling interviews using the online system in mean of 46.2 minutes (median 10, range 1-1800) from the interview offer as compared with a mean of 320.2 minutes (median 60, range 3-2880) for other programs not using this system. This difference was statistically significant. In addition, applicants were more likely to rate their satisfaction using the online system as "satisfied" (83.5% vs 16.5%). Applicants were also more likely to state that they preferred scheduling their interviews using the online system rather than the way other programs scheduled interviews (74.2% vs 4.1%) and that the online system aided them coordinating travel arrangements (52.1% vs 4.1%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An online interview scheduling system is associated with higher satisfaction among applicants both in coordinating travel arrangements and in overall satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Alameda County Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Oakland, California.
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wills
authors.affiliation: Alameda County Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Oakland, California.
authors.forename: H Gene
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Hern
authors.affiliation: Alameda County Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Oakland, California.
authors.forename: Harrison
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Alter
mesh_terms: D007396:Internship and Residency; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007586:Job Application; D009862:Online Systems; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012189:Retrospective Studies
references.citation: Acad Emerg Med. 2013 Apr;20(4):409-12
references.pmid: 23701351
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