Anyone who has had to create or manage complicated shift scheduling, including emergency medicine scheduling, at one time or another has likely likened it to trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube puzzle. There are many moving pieces that have to be considered, and before you know it you are more confused than when you started. With its complex workflow, shift scheduling is even more confusing if physician scheduling is done by the old-fashioned pen and paper method.
Fortunately, today, it is easier than ever to turn the tedious task of scheduling emergency medical personnel into a simplified process through physician scheduling software. Emergency medicine scheduling is made less painful, and solves the complex puzzle of scheduling when carried out by a modern physician scheduling software system. By automating the creation of work schedules based on 24x7 shifts, physician scheduling software provides the tool needed to ensure coverage among multiple facilities and location, in addition to minimizing emergency physician fatigue.
Emergency Departments Today
Today, emergency rooms are faced with a rise in patient volume, as many patients use the emergency room as their first resort medical source. As a result, emergency groups, departments, and hospitals are faced with making quick, yet vital, decisions about staffing while taking into account treatment modalities and methods.
For that reason, scheduling can have a profound effect on an emergency department. On the one hand, it can increase revenues and develop a competitive advantage when done efficiently. On the other hand, it can have a negative effect when done haphazardly in terms of its effect on the personal lives of those that work the shift schedule and its potential to reduce staff morale.
Additionally, burnout and shift-work disorder are very real, yet common occurrences, in practically any industry, but especially in emergency medicine. Both can lead to excessive fatigue and increase in absences due to illness. What is far worse, is the potential for mistakes, which in emergency medicine can not only be costly, but be dangerous to the lives of patients.
Benefits of Physician Scheduling Software
Some of the top benefits of using physician scheduling software for emergency medical personnel scheduling include:
• Reduced physician burnout
• Better rested physicians
• Improved physician job satisfaction and morale
• Improved physician retention
• Scheduling time savings (sometimes even hours)
• Effective rescheduling due to last minute changes or unforeseen events
• Creation of fair and equitable schedules
• Improved emergency department productivity
• Less physician frustration when scheduling time-off
• Improved patient care
Final Thoughts
The quality of schedules for emergency physicians play a huge role in the success of delivering quality emergency medicine care. It also plays a big part in retaining the best emergency physicians in your department. Deciding to improve and modernize emergency department scheduling is a necessary in today’s fast paced emergency departments in order to continue offering top quality healthcare to patients and retain world class emergency room physicians.
Because in the emergency room every second counts, physician scheduling software helps make the most of every second.
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