November 18, 2019
As the healthcare industry continues to make incredible advances in technology, it’s a bit of a mystery why some hospitals are still using outdated, manual scheduling processes such as spreadsheets, or even pen and paper.
What’s worse is there are many complicated issues related to manual scheduling that continue to plague staffing managers as they spend a large portion of their work days building schedules, making changes to an already distributed schedule, and then attempting to contact employees to make sure they are aware of any last-minute changes or urgent shift needs.
When a staffing manager or unit director is placed solely in charge of all of the scheduling related duties and responsibilities, this places them at an unfair advantage as they are the first to get blamed for any human errors, schedule confusions, and general miscommunications.
One easy solution to eliminate these scheduling errors is the implementation of healthcare scheduling software. This removes the heavy burdens related to scheduling off of the staffing manager, making it a more equal and fair process for everyone involved. Plus, employees will appreciate having more freedom and control over setting and managing their own schedules.
By deploying a system wide scheduling process, supervisors can get a comprehensive view of all full time, per diem, and agency assets. This helps your bottom line by keeping overtime shifts in check, as well as optimizing your workforce.
Rules-Based Self-Scheduling
While employees will have more independence and freedom over their own schedules, managers still have the ability to set limits and regulations according to rules- based self-scheduling. This ensures that individual work targets are being met, and safe levels of staffing occur by only allowing those who meet the qualifications and credentials to select certain shifts. Management still defines the guidelines, and certain features can be turned on or disabled for the entire department, or per employee. Give some of the scheduling control to your staff. Having a healthy work/life balance will improve work performance, and therefore influence healthcare professionals to provide better patient care. Happy staff=happy patients.
Time Off Requests
Another useful feature found in online hospital scheduling software is transparent, organized paid time off (PTO) requests, versus the more complicated, chaotic process in the past, which lead to extra paperwork for staffing management to decipher. With hospital scheduling software, employee logins are configured to allow scheduling preferences or requests, as well as the ability to submit time off requests pending admin approval. This can be set in conjunction with your hospital’s time off policies, making the process seamless and efficient.
Messaging Features
Each employee has a message board where admins can immediately message them with time sensitive material, whether it’s to inform them of a change in their schedule, the status of a time off request, or any other vital information they need to know. Messages are time stamped when read which eliminates an employee making a claim that they never received the message.
Credential Tracking
Licensure and skills are stored and tracked in employee profiles, and any skills requiring recertification are tracked by expiration date, alerting employees 60 days before expiration. This is then linked back to the Credential page for rapid updating, which helps prevent those workers lacking certain credentials from being offered or filling shifts that they aren’t even qualified to fulfill, compromising patient safety.
Retainment and Recruitment
When employees are involved and engaged in the scheduling process, they are much more likely to remain in their current position because they are able to achieve a more positive work-life balance, which isn’t easy for anyone in the busy, fast paced healthcare industry. Creating a low-turn-over environment will build morale, support employee engagement, and patients feel the direct effect of a happy staff.
Hospital scheduling software by Schedule360 enables employees and managers to join forces and tackle scheduling together, as a team. Wouldn’t it be great to see how our software can be customized to your unique scheduling needs? Let’s do it! Contact us today for a customized demo. There’s no better way to see how configurable our software is, and how essential it can be for your department.