Master Clinician Network (MCN) is an online educational platform for guided observation and the development of clinical skills in speech-language pathology.
An interview with Rachel Fischer, Director of Product Development at MCN
by Shaun Davidson, VP, Sembit Corp
Rachel Fischer, Director of Product Development, MCN
Hi Rachel! To start us off, can you describe what's unique about MCN's online education platform?
Sure! So, there are a lot of different educational platforms out there. Most of them are very, very broad in what you can use them for. And most of them are also very clunky in how they work. We are hyper-focused on the field of speech-language pathology. So, we have developed a way for students and faculty to do a very specific thing within a very specific field.
The way that observations have often been done in this field, is a student goes into a clinic. They watch someone doing therapy, and the person doing therapy says yes, you showed up and you watched this therapy. There was minimal feedback. And that's the way it was done until we started doing this.
Can you describe what's different about your approach?
What's different is we are ensuring students are watching therapists do top quality therapy. In many university clinics, undergraduate students observe graduate student clinicians who are seeing their first clients. Our clinicians are certified professionals at the top of their field and at the top of their specialty.
Also, we get HIPAA release forms for all of the clients and we make sure that the only people accessing our system are the people that are supposed to be there. This is not YouTube!
Okay, interesting. So, you have this custom learning platform you built with your previous vendor. Can you describe why you brought Sembit on to help?
So... we had the same website for about as long as you could have it, and it had begun to break. We were working with a very small company, and they were not able to do what we were asking. We really needed a company that had enough experience and had enough creativity to build what we were needing and Sembit fit the bill.
Awesome! Can you tell me more about what we specifically did for you?
We started by working on fixing things that were broken. There were features that worked somewhat but were not finished. And you guys have been helping us finish those features, getting all of the kinks ironed out, really making sure that it does what we say it does.
Now we're moving into making sure that we are usable on mobile devices, which we have not been. We're also planning to start building new features and new pieces of our website that we haven't been able to get to because of flaws in the old system. Since we started working with Sembit, there have been these little minor things that we were afraid to ask for that you guys would come through and just say, "Oh, we can make this better." You would fix issues with the system, and I mean, we just did dances. Things that we thought were beyond asking for wound up not being a big deal at all.
That's great! Have you gotten feedback from your customers about the work we've been doing with you?
So... it has helped our customers in that we are not afraid to ask for things they asked us for, just to reiterate that point. But also, the features that we had originally presented to our clients work better. When we make a change, it doesn't break the whole system. The entire process is smoother. Also, you guys have always had our client in the front of your mind. We didn't have to explain that they were our top priority; you just knew that. Also, nine times out of ten, you will think of things that we didn't think of that our clients love.
Relative to other options you had, how cost effective was it to engage with Sembit?
It is more cost effective than any of our other options. Sembit is very transparent and very cost aware when we talk about implementing new features. You will tell us if we're asking for something that's going to take extra time or extra money. And that allows us to make effective decisions and ask ourselves - is this something we want to do right now? The level of financial transparency in what we're asking for has been so helpful in our ability to plan what we want to do. Because you keep track of time carefully, we're not concerned that the bill is going to be different at the end of the month than what you've reported. There is a high level of financial peace of mind that comes with working with your team.
Okay, second to the last question here. In terms of Sembit meeting our schedules, how quickly were we able to deliver this work for you?
You guys have worked fast. You dove in right away. And again, there's a really clear understanding of how long different things are going to take.
In the year that we've been working with you, we're moving about twice as fast as we were able to move previously.
Okay, last question. What would you say to someone else who is considering working with Sembit?
Do it! This company is professional, compassionate, and so competent it will make your head spin.