ER departments are among the most challenging types of healthcare specialties for emergency medicine scheduling because of the greatest physician burnout rate of all specialties as well as the round-the-clock requirements of staff. In your group's shift scheduling system, you have to address patient flow fluctuations, physician preferences, overcrowding, and staff shortages.
And with today’s pandemic, ER departments are being hit with even more challenges and struggles.
These days with the outbreak of COVID-19, a lot of scheduling administrators are setting up auxiliary scheduling systems for managing medical students, tent triage teams, and retired physicians who are joining the healthcare staff in the emergency department or the nurse unit.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly changed the way medical care is being delivered in the U.S. and has impacted healthcare facilities' operations today and for at least the near future. This impact might include:
• Deferring and delaying health care not related to COVID-19
• Increases in patients requiring respiratory illness care that might be COVID-19
• Fluctuations in healthcare center occupancy
• Disruptions in supply chains
• Staff absenteeism due to caregiving responsibilities or illness
• Increases in concerns for mental health
You can configure physician scheduling software and set it up quickly to allow you to start creating ER schedules in far less time than it would take you with paper or Excel. The main benefit is you can have your schedule available online securely for your whole staff to reference and view.
Doctors can use a smartphone app to view their schedules. Since physicians are extremely mobile and their schedules can change on a dime, it is vital they have access to their schedules 24/7.
If there's a situation where you have one or more doctors who become sick and can't work, you can easily reconfigure the shift scheduling software with your existing resources.
Healthcare facilities are required to provide the safest possible care to their patients and keep their medical staff safe as well and at the adequate level regardless of whether patients need outpatient care, home-based care, inpatient care, emergency room care, or intensive care.
As a scheduling administrator, it’s your job to ensure you have the proper coverage to handle these requirements and have backup shift staff ready in case there’s a change in shifts (a physician becomes ill or has to take care of a family member who does). With the spread of COVID-19 today, changes in shifts is much more possible than ever.
Scheduling software makes this easier to do. If you haven’t looked into it yet, now could be the best time yet to reap the benefits of online physician scheduling software, whether for your medical office, stand-alone hospital, healthcare network, or telemedicine practice.
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