3 Forms Your School Athletics Team Needs
Modernize your athletic program with digital forms
Athletic paperwork and processing have long led to burdensome administrative demands, slow and fragmented communication, delays in student-athlete participation, and a variety of other obstacles depending on the athletic program participation level. Relying on outdated resources makes it difficult for athletic programs to maintain efficiency and remain organized, especially during new student-athlete registration and updating old records.
By introducing technology like digital and online forms, athletic programs can reap various benefits and create a seamless experience for parents/guardians, students, and staff. Check out these top three forms for your school's athletic needs:
College Athletics: The Medical History Form
Leveraging digital forms to collect medical history data empowers athletic trainers to access athlete information in real-time, streamlining the registration of new athletes joining college athletic programs. Quickly update an athlete’s medical history using software integrations that allow them to review or adjust information from previous years.
Alongside streamlined processes and eliminated data gaps, digital medical history forms can be used to capture various information – from previous colleges for college transfers to their family’s medical history, allergies, symptoms, and current medications. Digital forms allow users the ability to capture critical information with features like file attachments, table fields, signature boxes, and more, allowing athletes to quickly enter their medical history. For example, a file attachment field can be used to attach additional health documentation (X-rays, MRI scans, etc.) that cannot be explained or answered in the form – further enhancing athlete care.
High School Athletics: Consent Forms
Consent forms are a vital document for many high school athletic programs, used to communicate the details and potential risks of a specific activity and collect parent/guardian confirmation of consent to participate. When relying on traditional paperwork and static PDFs to collect consent, high school athletic programs risk inaccurate or missing information, burdens of physical record-keeping, and the possibility of delays for a student to participate. For these reasons, many high school athletic programs are turning to online forms to streamline and accelerate the competition of highly accurate, comprehensive consent forms.
Online consent forms can be filled out and completed from mobile devices, like phones and tablets, or filled out online from a computer. Links to newly digitized consent forms can even be shared via email, text, and on a high school website, accelerating student-athlete participation authorizations. To further strengthen this newly digitized process, online consent forms can even be equipped with electronic signatures and required fields, ensuring critical authorizations have been input prior to a form being submitted.
Recreational Athletics: The Emergency Contact Form
Emergency contact forms are key documents within the athletic world, especially when participating in after-school activities. Collecting emergency contact forms is standard procedure for athletic programs, as these forms provide information on who should be contacted in the event of an emergency or traumatic event.
When relying on paper forms to collect emergency contact information, athletic programs could face a variety of obstacles if an emergency does occur, such as:
Paper forms require physical storage, meaning a trainer or coach must manually search for an individual’s specific emergency contact form to find critical contact information.
Paper forms are also prone to human error and legibility issues, meaning that once a form has been located, the information documented may be incorrect or impossible to read.
With digital emergency contact forms, completed forms can be instantly tagged with a user’s name or athletic team information upon completion, further improving the accessibility of the vital document. Additional fields can notate details about the contact’s relationship with the individual or whether their phone was a work or cell phone number.
Regardless if you are in a recreational athletic program or are managing thousands of college athletes, digital and online forms can be a great asset to enhancing your vital athletic documentation management.
About GoFormz
GoFormz is an online form builder and operational data management solution that helps garner actionable insights from collected data. We believe by introducing digital solutions into everyday processes, athletic programs can redefine how individuals collect and process information. Whether you need digitized transportation forms or require a signature form, GoFormz can bring your existing paper forms to the digital realm (which no other digital form solution can offer) – requiring no coding experience! With Automated Workflows and an open API, collected data can be instantly routed to existing operating systems and accessible in real-time.
