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For a long time, emergency medicine scheduling has been a challenging task that takes a lot of time and focus to get totally right. Striking the right balance when scheduling by hand is difficult with such a large number of factors to take into account. These factors include, for example, vacations, shift preferences, holidays, overtime, burnout, and so forth. It’s no wonder that many hospitals are moving towards shift scheduling programs as a far more efficient and effective alternative.
A hospitalist is a practitioner who is responsible for clinical care, research, teaching and sometimes leadership in hospital medicine. Adult medicine hospitalists working full-time on a shift-based pattern work an average of 182 shifts per annum. The total shift number is currently down from 188 shifts per year in 2005. However, hospitalists report feeling far busier today than in the past. It’s thought that this is due to typical shift lengths increasing over the years.
Hospital departments have a huge swath of difficulties to confront. Many have, for instance, overcrowding and understaffing to contend with. Therefore, it's critical to have enough of the correct number of staff members planned to work at any one time. Patient arrivals often fluctuate hour after hour and week after week. There are also seasonal changes to consider too, such as, winter influenza patients.
There are such a large number of aspects to be considered when making a workable calendar. This is due to the complex demands of medicine and scheduling. Fortunately, there is currently another option rather than slaving over a paper plan with numerous choices as far as hospitalist scheduling is concerned.
A hospitalist scheduling program is now an integral aspect of many departments. It helps schedulers and administrators to make the most of their resources and to save precious time. A specialized program allows you to create schedules ensuring the right staff are available at the times you need them to be.
Hospitalist scheduling software allows you to view varied work schedule patterns that accommodate a whole range of shift configurations, scheduling styles, and processes. It also gives you warning of any potential physician scheduling conflicts while calculating pay for extra duty, overtime and more. Additionally, you can distribute schedules electronically. These can then be accessed from anywhere your staff has an internet connection.
The correct program can be easily operated. Changes can be attended to and actioned rapidly and uploaded with ease. Hospitalists can then communicate their needs to you in real time.
The benefits of a hospitalist scheduling program prevents clinician burnout by determining an accurate and fair picture of who is working and when. Thus, staff work/life balance is improved.
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