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A hospitalist is an integral health professional within a hospital setting. Providing comprehensive medical care to patients who are hospitalized, the hospitalist is responsible for diagnosing and treating patients, as well finding ways to improve the overall function of the facilities he works in.
From reviewing the needs of patients, assessing vital charts and labs, treating patients and educating their families, conversing with social workers and case managers – among other things – the responsibilities of a hospitalist are many and their jobs can be quite demanding.
Because these health care professionals are such a fundamental part of a hospital, providing them with fair and flexible schedules is crucial to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Over-scheduling and not meeting requests for time off can impact a hospitalist’s productivity, which can directly impact patient needs and the function of the hospital. Fortunately, there is a way that hospitalist’s scheduling managers can ensure that they are creating fair, flexible schedules that meet the needs of these professionals: Hospitalist scheduling software.
Definition and Benefits of Hospitalist Scheduling Software
Shift scheduling software is a computer-based program that allows scheduling managers to view, access and create hospitalist’s schedules with ease. Upon logging into the software, managers can easily see past schedules and view availabilities and requests for time off. Unlike the traditional methods that are used for the creation of emergency medicine scheduling (i.e., paper and pencil,) which can be confusing and difficult to manage, this software simplifies the task of physician scheduling by allowing managers to meet the needs of hospitalists, thus providing them with fair and flexible schedules.
Using this type of software to create a hospitalist’s schedule provides numerous benefits, including:
Ensuring that all shifts are properly covered without unfairly scheduling hospitalists. The manager can see which shifts need to be covered, as well as the shifts each hospitalist has worked. He or she can then fill in those shifts fairly by effectively rotating them.
Honoring requests for time off. Should someone request vacation time, or need to take time off for any other reason, he or she can make requests directly through the scheduling software. Scheduling managers can then easily view those requests and ensure that they are honored, while still making sure that shifts are properly and fairly covered by other hospitalists.
Maintaining productivity of hospitalists. Since a healthy work-life balance is so vital to the hospitalist’s health and well-being, scheduling software can help to ensure that these professionals are not over-scheduled and over-worked, thus allowing them to maintain – and even increase – their productivity.
Controlling hospital expenses by eliminating overtime payments. Over-scheduling can lead to overtime payments, which directly impacts a hospital’s budget. Scheduling software can aid scheduling managers in better managing shifts, helping them to avoid excessive hours for a particular hospitalist and thus avoiding overtime payments.
Hospitalists scheduling software can prove to be an effective way to improve the function of hospitalists and the facilities they work for by making it easier to provide these professionals with schedules that are both fair and flexible.
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