When not with patients, Dr. Claudia F. Olson, MD, must find time to assess expected workloads by location and specialty so she can add or subtract applicable providers and shifts to ensure optimal coverage. But physicians often specify preferences such as \u201cno Sundays\u201d or \u201cno evenings,\u201d and unexpected changes require juggling schedules in this rotating shift environment. Dr. Olson must ensure fair and equitable scheduling for all providers, publish and republish dynamic schedules, and track providers\u2019 work products for payroll purposes.<\/p>\n
Using Microsoft Excel for employee scheduling, Dr. Olson was spending unnecessarily long hours at these detailed and complex tasks. \u201cExcel is clunky in this application,\u201d she says. \u201cJuggling all those factors for two clinic locations was dicey. Three were unmanageable. Handling four would have been impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccommodating physician\u2019s preferences and changes in Excel was a huge hassle requiring several worksheets. I had to put different providers in different-colored fonts, which wasn\u2019t clear so people couldn\u2019t always tell whether, when, and where they were working. In printouts, I had to manually highlight each provider in a separate color. Then, verifying thorough coverage and totalling hours for payroll added another five or six hours per week. I was always up late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Olson drew up specifications for the ideal staff scheduling software. \u201cIt had to drag and drop, have colors, and be fast and intuitive to use and make changes in our dynamically changing environment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a month\u2019s searching and software trials, we had tested basic and complex employee scheduling software, going through tutorials and actually applying their tools hands-on to our real-world applications. Some were overly complex and expensive. Others required pointless data entry into fields we didn\u2019t need\u2014but would have had to fill in and pay for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe downloaded a trial version of Snap Schedule and that was our answer. The first thing I noticed was that it is easy to visualize quickly. Staff and I see a provider\u2019s name, look across and see her schedule for a month at a time. In the past, they used to have to look every day.\u201d Snap Schedule is developed, marketed and supported by Business Management Systems (BMS) of Anaheim, California, USA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hours I save are tremendous,\u201d says Dr. Olson, \u201cand that is still improving. I can spend more time with patients. Even though a clinic\u2019s dynamic conditions force us to constantly tweak schedules, I still save 50 percent of the previous time spent in scheduling.<\/p>\n
\u201cSnap Schedule is exactly designed to cover handle our biggest need\u2014which was Excel\u2019s biggest weakness\u2014multiple locations,\u201d she says. \u201cI can easily put in scheduled vacations, sudden requests for days off and sick days. I put in meetings and CME time as shifts and I can repeat patterns I set up. We easily see if any shift at any location isn\u2019t correctly covered and it alerts me if I try to mis-schedule someone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can look down the side and see how many hours I have people working at which location. Colors tell people where they\u2019re going on which days, and all parties can see that no provider is working extra hours except by request. Then I email schedules to providers so they see them immediately, which is really helpful. And I can already tell it will be easy to teach another person to use. I wish we\u2019d had it years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"