From DaVinci to Elentra: How Institutions Are Strengthening Workflows

Platform transitions in medical education aren’t simply IT consolidation projects—they’re operational and cultural shifts that affect everything from assessment strategy and clerkship administration to faculty workload management and the learner experience.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a clear trend: programs using DaVinci Leo or platforms from other vendors are moving to Elentra and using the transition as an opportunity to modernize workflows and more fully operationalize competency-based education (CBE). At the same time, newer programs adopting Elentra from the ground up are seeking to build scalable clinical and curricular infrastructure from day one.

Why Schools Are Moving to Elentra: The Need for Structure Without Extra Burden

As competency frameworks become more measurable and more embedded across health professions education programs, schools increasingly need a modern, secure platform that can support:

• Clear competency frameworks (objectives, milestones, and progression)
• Dedicated clinical workflows across distributed sites and high volumes of activity
• Modern interfaces for both learner-facing and administrator-facing tasks
• Iterative refinement that allows programs to improve without rebuilding

In short, the system must make it easier to do high-quality education at scale, not harder. 

A Long-Established Medical School Extends a Mature CBE Model Into Clerkships

An Ivy League medical school in Connecticut, founded in 1810, has long been recognized for its contributions to biomedical research, clinical care, and medical education. Central to its educational philosophy is a comprehensive competency-based curriculum grounded in nine core competencies, each supported by clearly defined program objectives and measurable milestones.

That structure matters because it creates clarity for learners and consistency for faculty. But the clinical years also introduce complexity such as there being more evaluators, more sites, more documentation, and a higher volume of assessments.

As part of its continued refinement of CBE, this institution successfully launched its competency-based clerkship curriculum in Elentra, marking an important step in extending CBE further into undergraduate medical education (UME).

From the program implementation team’s perspective, several platform characteristics were repeatedly highlighted as contributors to a smooth go-live:

• Easy movement between learner and administrative views, supporting faster daily workflows
• Strong system performance, critical for clerkship-scale usage
• Streamlined event document management, reducing friction in daily clerkship operations

Following successful demos and a launch with faculty and learners, the school is now positioned to keep advancing a structured, outcomes-focused approach to clinical education supported by workflows that are easier to sustain.

A New Osteopathic Medical School Builds Clinical Infrastructure With Early Operational Wins

In Florida, a newer osteopathic medical school has taken a thoughtful approach to building its academic infrastructure in parallel with program development. This institution began in 2019, was officially founded in 2021, and received pre-accreditation from the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA) in 2023.

Now entering its third year of cohort operation, the program continues to build academic and administrative systems alongside the growth of the school itself, using Elentra as a foundational platform. The school began its Elentra implementation with a focus on clinical scheduling, introducing Lottery features to support rotation placement across distributed clinical sites. Their model, which involves a two-part lottery (one for selecting preferred region and another for assigning rotations within a region) helps coordinate placements across sites while still giving learners a clear, structured way to express preferences.

Notably, clinical teams have already used the lottery twice as part of a phased rollout, gradually introducing learners to the workflow while the clinical experience continues to evolve. As the third-year clinical structure matures, the program is also exploring Elentra’s new Learner-Driven Scheduling features.

In parallel, the program has begun expanding Elentra into broader curriculum management. Its UME team has started transitioning learning events into the system to support curriculum operations alongside clinical scheduling. The rollout is intentionally staged with clinical education launching in the summer and pre-clinical education launching in the fall as part of a plan that allows the platform to grow with the program. 

What These Success Stories Have in Common

While these two schools differ in size, history, and implementation context, the take-aways are consistent and particularly relevant for institutions moving to Elentra from other platforms:

1. Tie platform decisions to educational intent
   Elentra supports a defined competency framework with objectives and milestones, making it easier to carry CBE into clerkships.

2. Focus on workflows that matter most
   Clinical education is operationally complex. Prioritizing clerkships, scheduling, and document workflows in Elentra creates immediate value and reduces administrative drag.

3. Build momentum through visible milestones
   The launch of a competency-based clerkship and a successful rotations lottery aren’t "small wins"—they're high-visibility moments that build institutional confidence and adoption.

4. Use staged rollouts to protect quality
   Whether migrating from another platform or implementing new, phased deployment helps Elentra campus project teams learn, refine, and expand—without forcing everything to go live at once.

The Transition to Elentra Is Paying Off

These examples are just two among others that share a similar pattern which is that when institutions align platform capabilities to practical educational and operational needs, they unlock both near-term execution wins and long-term flexibility.

For institutions moving to Elentra from DaVinci Leo specifically, the strongest outcomes we have seen are from those who see the move not as a swap, but as a strategic step toward more consistent competency-based assessment, clearer learner progression, easier-to-sustain clerkship operations, and better day-to-day experiences for faculty, staff, and learners.

If you’re considering a move from another platform to Elentra—or looking to strengthen CBE and clinical operations—we'd love to share what successful schools are doing and what to expect from the transition—contact us today.