The University of Calgary’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS), based at the Cumming School of Medicine, is one of the school’s newest programs and the first of its kind in the province. The MPAS program aims to provide students with a holistic educational experience, combining intensive course work with diverse clinical rotations, so that students graduate with not only the technical knowledge needed to practice, but also an awareness of the social determinants that affect the health care needs of specific populations in Canada. 

When it came time to build an admissions process for this groundbreaking program, the University of Calgary turned to Kira Talent. 

“We are a brand new program, trying to manage a million different things as we prepare for our first cohort,” shared Allison Brown, the Assistant Director of Education Scholarship at the University of Calgary."One of the most significant hurdles was the MMI, as only a few members of our already small team had first-hand experience with delivering one. Leveraging Kira’s expertise in that area gave us a lot of peace of mind.” 

Delivering a seamless MMI with reduced resources

"It was never a consideration to conduct the MMI in person,” shared Brown. “I've done in-person MMIs in previous roles, and it’s a significant undertaking from an organizational and resource standpoint.”

“We were working within a very tight timeline to get our interviews up and running, and Kira was instrumental in making that happen,” she continued. “Looking back, it’s clear that we made the right choice.” 

“Having done the interviews virtually now with Kira, it's hard to imagine any benefit of doing it in person, because the Kira platform makes it feel so real and professional.”

"We received such positive feedback from our applicants regarding the Live Interview,” shared Chenwei Lian, the Program Manager for the Master of Physician Assistant Studies at the University of Calgary. “For next year, we’re considering adding Kira’s Asynchronous Assessment as a pre-screening step in the admissions process to gather early insight into applicants and help mitigate resource challenges with our rater pools."

Accessing real-time analytics within minutes

“The access to data and analytics that Kira provides was a huge benefit for our team,” Brown shared. “I could see the scores as they came in and quickly identify raters who were scoring too generously or too harshly.” 

"The way Kira collects and aggregates data with different ways of exporting the information made it a lot faster for me to sort and analyze whatever needed my attention," she explained.  “Without Kira, we would have had to manually import data from our team, which is not only a much slower process, but there is always room for error when you’re dealing with people.”

“Within 48 hours from the end of our interview weekend, I had completed all our analysis, and combined rank order.”

"From the administrative perspective, Kira made everything so simple and seamless,” Lian added. “If I needed to run this in person or using Zoom, I cannot imagine how we could have managed.” 

"Interview days are usually stressful in my experience,” Brown continued, “but having Kira’s all-in-one system allows us to handle those instances easily.”

“A few minutes before the interview, I can check everyone’s status in the Admin Dashboard, make sure that they’re all online and ready to go,” she explained. “If someone’s missing, I can easily copy their link and contact a backup interviewer.” 

Dedicated support, wherever your team needs it

“Having the Kira team by our side throughout this process has been phenomenal,” Lian shared. 

“Everyone was so committed to helping us optimize the platform, while also being open to feedback and making whatever changes were needed so that the platform adjusted to our process, not the other way around,” Brown added. “It was nice to work with an industry partner that shows that level of care and investment.” 

“If I could rate the level of support we received from Kira, I would give them a 200/100.”

“The team understood the needs of our program,” Lian continued. “They were knowledgeable, helpful, and ready to jump in and assist us at any time.”

"With Kira, we presented a very professional process,” shared Lian. “The applicant and interviewer feedback was fantastic, nobody could tell that we put this together in such a short time-frame because it was such a smooth experience.” 

“We’re extremely happy with this cycle,” she finished. “And we couldn’t have achieved it without Kira.”