Working long shifts is not a new concept in an emergency medicine environment. In fact, all ER physicians feel the stress of long, endless shifts at some point, regardless of how long they've been doing it. Unfortunately, just because you've been practicing for a long time doesn't make seemingly never-ending shifts any easier. And, not getting a break from this type of schedule can lead to burnout for doctors.
As the scheduling administrator, you're not just responsible for scheduling your physicians and other medical support team members, but you're also responsible for patient care. When your schedule is unorganized and not filled up, this affects patient care. Emergency departments have a variety of job titles and positions; all that require different work schedules and specific skills. There is, however, something you can do using emergency medicine scheduling software.
Shift scheduling software can help: Create Schedules Quickly and Efficiently
With this type of program, you can easily drag-and-drop to assign shifts, copy or move assignments for your staff, mark time off and more.Create Your Schedule in Advance
You should make shift schedules a minimum of two weeks in advance before your physicians have to work. This gives them time to plan their lives and provides them with the chance to:
- Trade shifts with others
- Reschedule personal commitments
- Find a substitute
While your schedule requires a lot of thought and work, it still has to be flexible to allow your doctors to have a personal life.
Avoid Schedule Conflicts
Identify and alert different types of schedule conflicts such as lacking required skills, overlapping shifts, too many overtime hours or not enough rest between shifts. Physician scheduling software will flag and color-code any conflicts on the schedule.
Track Time Off
Emergency medicine scheduling software can help you track vacation, on-call, sick leave, training and other off-work requests. You can define as many unpaid and paid time-off reasons as you want. Just drag and drop a reason onto the program's schedule planner to mark if and when a staff member is off-work. Identify who are off-work and their reason why. Generate instant reports that show details on planned time off, vacation and training hours for any period of time you choose.
Easily and Quickly Fill Open Shifts
Shift scheduling programs can help you quickly find qualified nurses or doctors and contact them to fill open shifts. It takes only a few clicks of your mouse to fill open shifts. Tell the software your criteria and it instantly shows you a list of potential candidates who are available to fill an open shift. You can set ranking based on all types of criteria such as skills, positions, job seniority, work hour limits, labor cost and availability.
|