Software for surgical technology programs: what each one actually does

August 21, 2026 · 9 minute read · For surgical technology program directors

Most surgical technology programs already pay for software, and most of them are still doing the Outcomes Tracking Tool by hand. That is not a contradiction. The systems programs buy were built to track students inside clinical rotations, and the OTT is a different job that nobody sold them a tool for.

So this is not a ranking of one winner. Three of the four options below solve different problems, and plenty of programs need two of them at once. If you only want the short answer: Trajecsys is the established choice for clinical recordkeeping in surgical technology, and WeaverKeep is the only one on this list built around the ARC/STSA outcomes record. Those two do not overlap.

What should you look for in software for a surgical technology program?

Five questions separate these options, and only the first one is about features. The rest decide whether the purchase survives contact with your institution.

1. Does it cover the outcomes record, or only clinical hours? Clinical tracking systems log where a student was and what they did. The OTT asks a different question: what happened to each cohort across retention, exam participation, exam pass rate, placement, and two survey measures. A system can be excellent at the first and know nothing about the second.

2. Who pays, the program or the students? Most clinical tracking in allied health is priced per student and billed to the student, often through the bookstore so it can be rolled into financial aid. That keeps it off your department budget and puts it on your students' cost of attendance. Whether that is good or bad depends on which number your dean is looking at.

3. Does it produce ARC/STSA's actual forms? A report that looks like the OTT is not the OTT. ARC/STSA requires programs to upload the Outcomes Tracking Tool itself with the annual report, so anything that exports a lookalike still leaves you transcribing.

4. Does the program survive the program director leaving? Site contacts, seat agreements, and the reasoning behind past PAC decisions usually live in one person's memory and one person's folders. A system only helps here if that material is entered as the work happens rather than reconstructed later.

5. Will it clear your institution's security review? Public colleges in some states run vendor risk programs before anything touches student records. Texas is one of them. Ask about it in the first call, not after your dean approves the budget.

The four options for surgical technology programs, compared

Trajecsys

Trajecsys is the one with a landing page written specifically for surgical technology, and it has been in allied health long enough that many programs inherit it rather than choose it. It handles time records, activity reports, checkoffs and forms, scheduling, and case log sign-off with what the company calls embedded physical signatures, meaning a preceptor signs on the device at the site. Demos now route through Portico, which is worth knowing if you search for them and land somewhere unexpected. It does surface accreditation reporting, but that reporting is built from clinical activity data, not from the cohort outcomes the OTT asks about.

Best for: programs whose main pain is proving students were at clinical and that a preceptor signed off on their cases.

Pricing: $50 per student for access under 3 months, $75 under 6 months, $100 for 6 to 12 months, and $150 for 12 to 24 months in allied health and non-nursing programs. Setup is free. Students can pay directly, pay through a bookstore, or the program can be invoiced.

Free trial: no published trial. Demo on request.

Bottom line: the safe choice for clinical recordkeeping in this field, and it will not keep your OTT current, because that is not what it was built to do.

Typhon Group

Typhon Group sells a student tracking system across nursing and allied health, with an all-health product line rather than a surgical technology specific one. Its advantage is institutional: if your college runs nursing, radiologic technology, and surgical technology, one Typhon contract can cover all of them, which is an easier conversation with a dean than three separate vendors. The tradeoff is that a platform built to fit every health discipline does not carry ARC/STSA's specific thresholds, forms, or the three consecutive year rule. Typhon does not publish pricing on its own site, describing it as a modest annual subscription plus one-time per-student pricing.

Best for: institutions consolidating several health programs onto one tracking system.

Pricing: not published. At least one university's own fee page lists a $100 one-time student fee paid directly to Typhon. Confirm current numbers with the vendor.

Free trial: not published. Demo on request.

Bottom line: a reasonable institutional standard, and the further a platform stretches across disciplines, the less it can know about any one accreditor.

The ARC/STSA Outcomes Tracking Tool workbook

ARC/STSA requires programs to record all cohort and student starts and program outcomes in the Outcomes Tracking Tool, and to upload it with the annual report. Every program on this page is already using it. The only real question is whether you keep it current as the year happens or rebuild it from six other places the week it is due. It costs nothing, it is exactly what the accreditor reads, and it has no idea when a survey went out, whether a clinical seat was confirmed, or what your PAC decided in March.

Best for: every CAAHEP surgical technology program, because it is required.

Pricing: free from ARC/STSA.

Free trial: not applicable.

Bottom line: the workbook is the destination no matter what else you buy, so judge every other option by how much of it fills itself in.

WeaverKeep

WeaverKeep is program management software for surgical technology programs, and it keeps the ARC/STSA outcomes record current all year rather than the month before a site visit. It imports the OTT workbook you already keep, reading ARC/STSA's real template cohort by cohort, and from then on retention, exam results, placement, and survey returns live in the OTT's own columns and color language. Alongside outcomes it holds the student roster, a clinical site bank with seats by term, PAC agendas and minutes, inventory counts, and accreditation evidence in the same record. The OTT workbook, the PAC form, the Program Evaluation Plan, and the graduate and employer survey PDFs generate onto ARC/STSA's actual templates.

Best for: program directors who are already doing this work and want it to stop being rebuilt every reporting cycle.

Pricing: $999 per program per year. No per-student fees and nothing billed to students. The first five programs get one full semester free and then $799 per program per year locked.

Free trial: no. A live demo at app.weaverkeep.com opens with sample data and no account needed. Historical cohorts are imported during onboarding, after the data agreement is signed.

Bottom line: the only option here built around the outcomes record, and it does not log clinical cases, track hours, or capture preceptor signatures, so a program that needs those still needs Trajecsys or Typhon alongside it. It is also new. There is no customer list to point at yet.

What about Exxat, Watermark, and Weave?

They are real products and they are not on the list, for one reason each. Exxat does not list surgical technology among the disciplines it serves. Its site names nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant, speech language pathology, athletic training, social work, counseling, public health, nutrition, and teacher education. It is a serious platform at 1,600 or more programs, and surgical technology is not one of its stated markets.

Watermark and Weave are institution-level assessment and accreditation systems. They are bought by a provost or an assessment office to cover an entire college, and they are good at rolling many programs into one institutional report. Neither knows what a 60 percent retention threshold means to ARC/STSA or what belongs on a PAC form. If your institution already owns one, you will still be keeping the OTT yourself.

How were these evaluated?

Four criteria, applied the same way to each option: whether it covers the ARC/STSA outcomes record or only clinical activity, who the price is billed to, whether it produces ARC/STSA's own forms or a lookalike, and whether a new program director could pick up where the last one left off.

Prices were read from each company's own pricing page where one exists and were checked on August 21, 2026. Trajecsys publishes its rates. Typhon and Exxat do not, so the figures quoted for those two come from public fee pages published by the colleges that use them and should be confirmed with the vendor. Requirements about the Outcomes Tracking Tool come from ARC/STSA's own published forms and annual report guidance. WeaverKeep is our product, and its weaknesses are named in its own section.

How should you choose?

Your students need to clock in and get cases signed at the site. Trajecsys, or Typhon if your institution wants one contract across several health programs. WeaverKeep does not do this.

Your college is consolidating vendors across nursing and allied health. Typhon, and expect to keep the OTT yourself.

Clinical tracking is handled and the OTT is still the spring scramble. WeaverKeep. That gap is the reason it exists.

You have a site visit inside twelve months and the record is scattered. Start with the site visit timeline before you buy anything. Some of what makes a visit painful is sequencing, not software.

You are about to admit a cohort you are not sure you can place. That is a capacity counting problem, and counting seats by term will tell you more this week than any purchase will.

The recommendation

If you have to pick one thing to fix this year, fix the one that is currently being done by hand. Nearly every surgical technology program already has clinical tracking of some kind and almost none of them have anything holding the outcomes record, which is the part the accreditor actually reads and the part that takes a semester to reconstruct.

Keep the clinical system you have. It is doing a job WeaverKeep does not do. Then decide whether the OTT is going to stay a yearly rebuild or become something that is simply current when you open it.

Common questions

Does Trajecsys track ARC/STSA outcomes?

No. Trajecsys tracks clinical activity: time records, case logs, preceptor sign-offs, checkoffs, and scheduling. It reports on that activity, but the ARC/STSA Outcomes Tracking Tool asks about cohort retention, exam participation and pass rate, graduate placement, and survey results, which are not clinical activity data. Programs using Trajecsys still complete the OTT separately.

Do I need both a clinical tracking system and WeaverKeep?

Most programs need both, and they do not overlap. Clinical tracking follows students inside rotations. WeaverKeep tracks the program: outcomes, thresholds, clinical site capacity, PAC meetings, and accreditation evidence. Neither one does the other's job.

How much does surgical technology program software cost?

Clinical tracking in allied health is usually priced per student. Trajecsys publishes $150 per student for 12 to 24 month access, and Typhon and Exxat do not publish rates but appear on college fee pages between $40 and $210 per student. WeaverKeep is $999 per program per year with no per-student fees, which means the cost does not move with cohort size.

Can software fill out the ARC/STSA Outcomes Tracking Tool for me?

Only if it holds the underlying measures all year. The OTT is a required workbook that programs upload with the annual report, so a system that exports a lookalike report still leaves you transcribing into the real form. WeaverKeep generates onto the actual ARC/STSA template from measures already entered.

What is the difference between program management and clinical tracking software?

Clinical tracking answers where a student was and what they did in a rotation. Program management answers how the program is performing against its accreditor: retention, exam results, placement, survey satisfaction, clinical capacity, and advisory committee decisions. The first is about individual students, the second is about cohorts and the program itself.