Collecting abstracts and peer review

SimGHOSTS' is a non-profit organization that supports individuals and institutions using healthcare simulation technology and spaces through hands on training, online resources and professional development. Their goal is to empower their community to increase adoption and better utilize simulation technologies to improve learning and patient care outcomes. Their Australian-based organization continues to work for the same goal globally since 2011.

They have 4 big events in which they collect abstracts, some exclusive events and workshops/seminars throughout the year. Considering their amount of work and goal, it is inevitable for them to use a vendor for their registration processes. When they have come to that realization, they started to look for a vendor. As their non-profit status, they did not want to allocate a big budget on that vendor, so as soon as they found a vendor that fits into their budget, they signed a 3-year agreement.

However, it did not take that long for them to regret from their decision. Because, their needs evolve throughout the time and this vendor was not enough to cover their additional needs like collecting abstracts. Even though it enables them to collect files; it was not enough to meet their “abstract collection” needs, since it does not enable to export those files as a whole to create a book of abstracts, nor, come with a peer review option.

So, they had to search for another vendor to cover their abstract collection needs and assign them to expert peers’ review to select the appropriate ones for their events. It was even a bigger challenge for them to find an affordable vendor for only abstract collection. After their research, they came across with MeetingHand and contacted with us.

Because of their agreement with another vendor, they only wanted to utilize abstract module of MeetingHand. Although MeetingHand is a registration-based software and the abstracts needs to be uploaded by the registrants; they contacted with our staff with an explanation and required an offer considering their special occasion. As MeetingHand, we gave them an option to use our abstract module as a product and offered them a reasonable offer for it.

Abstract Module

After considering of settling down with a file upload, MeetingHand’s abstract module was pretty helpful for all of their needs. So, they put submissions topics, presentation types, additional questions including a CV file upload and conditional logic questions, created information blocks to announce the consents; set deadline for the beginning and the end of the abstract collection dates; put instructions for the reviewers, put a detailed additional questions for reviewers including conditional logic questions. As a result, they were able to undertake all of their needed areas in their abstract collection process.

Since we did not want them to sign any agreement and hold our promise accordingly, they demanded a demo to see more than just the abstract module of MeetingHand. Upon their review of MeetingHand’s features, they said that they are going to be willing to utilize MeetingHand for all of their events’ needs and for the upcoming ones once their contract is over with the other vendor.