From one dimension to three: How Westover made the switch to August
For Jennifer Hill, Director of Health Services at Westover School, working in adolescent health has been a lifelong passion.
“I’m a pediatric nurse practitioner and I’ve known that I wanted to work in adolescent health since I was in graduate school,” she shares.
After nearly a decade working as a school-based health practitioner in the public school system, she was ready for a new challenge.
She stepped into the role at Westover, an all girls boarding school in Connecticut, in October of 2019.
“So if you can do your math correctly, I did not come in at the best time, right before a global pandemic,” Jennifer said with a laugh.
Despite the challenging timing, and the added complexity of supporting a globally diverse student body, she navigated it all with steady leadership and endless compassion for the girls in her care.
When Jennifer joined Westover, the school was using a school EHR that’s been around for almost 20 years. She quickly saw the limitations of an outdated system.
“I’ve obviously used different EHRs with different capacities in other roles that I’ve had… it was definitely a downgrade to go to our previous EHR from what I had been using.”
At a school nurse conference, she and her Director of Wellness saw August Schools in action.
“When we saw the utility of August Schools… my Director of Wellness was really intrigued as well and we started looking into it. It seemed like it would be a good fit for us.”
The decision to switch became even easier knowing they weren’t alone.
“We have a residential school nurse organization and other schools were making the jump so we decided to make the switch as well, knowing we had some people that we could go through the growing pains with.”
The transition to August Schools took place over the summer.
“I had a great onboarding with the team. They would meet with us to help guide the process and help orient us to the way enrollment packets are presented to families.”
One thing that stood out was the responsiveness of the August team.
“The customer service has just been so great. If I have a question or I encounter any hiccups, I have someone that I can message and hear back from the same day.”
From the moment she started using August, the difference was clear.
“It’s very user friendly. I felt like I was working in one dimension with our previous EHR, and I feel like I’m in three dimensions now in August just with the way that everything is accessible, the features and the colors. It’s just very attractive and user friendly in that way.”
Jennifer compared their EHR upgrade to something many people can relate to:
“It’s like when you get the iOS upgrade on your iPhone, I felt like we took it to the next level.”
A powerful bi-directional integration with Blackbaud, Westover’s student information system, was another plus.
“It’s great that it’s so integrated with the Blackbaud system that runs a lot of our school documentation.”
August’s ability to meet the needs of a diverse, international student population especially stood out.
“I was really interested in the translation services,” Jennifer noted.
Being able to translate enrollment documents into a family’s native language made a huge difference for the parent experience.
“The vaccine piece was also a huge selling point for me with the integrated translation of historical vaccines… especially with students coming from other countries where vaccines are documented in different languages and the dates are not necessarily in the same format that we use in the United States.”
Like many school health leaders, Jennifer juggles a high volume of communication with families. August made that easier.
“The communication piece is huge because we can send messages regarding one aspect of a requirement and ask families to resubmit it. It’s coming right from the platform versus logging out of the platform, finding their email address, putting it into our email and then sending a message off.”
Removing those extra steps has saved Jennifer valuable time and made family communication much simpler.
She’s also found the documentation system to be powerful and intuitive.
“It’s great to be able to put notes within notes with addendums… it’s nice to be able to capture so many different aspects of the patient experience at one time in one place.”
That ease of use has extended beyond the health office.
“Even my dean of students who previously documented in a different platform started taking notes in August and can now assign a note to me… so no steps are missed.”
Jennifer appreciates that the August platform continues to grow to support the entire student support team. It’s able to support not only nurses and counselors, but also learning specialists, athletic trainers, and leadership as well.
Jennifer is often asked by other school nurses about her experience.
“I’ve had lots of colleagues in other boarding schools ask ‘are you loving this, are you hating this,’ and I say, you know, there are growing pains at first but I don’t have any regrets.”
Her advice for other schools thinking about switching?
“I think it’s just about positioning yourself to onboard onto a new EHR. It’s not something that happens overnight, you have to dedicate some time and some elbow grease, but it’s gonna benefit you in the long run. It’s worth it.”