Automated staff scheduling in healthcare is on the rise. As AI technology continues to improve, so does the tech-driven scheduling software, making it much more seamless to handle the often complex scheduling needs of healthcare organizations. Nursing shortages and increased patient populations create the demand for better organization and efficiency. Automated scheduling is the answer.
As this tech-driven staffing tool gains momentum and popularity among hospitals, nursing facilities, clinics, assisted living centers, and essentially any busy healthcare organization looking to streamline and organize their scheduling demand, are you on board? Maybe it’s time to automate your scheduling.
Here, we take the opportunity to address exactly what it means to automate your healthcare staff scheduling. We’ll explore the underlying reasons behind the growing demand for automation, considering today’s rapidly evolving technology. We’ll offer tips for implementing this tech-driven tool in your healthcare organization. We’ll also examine the numerous benefits that come from automating your healthcare staff scheduling. But let’s begin with the basics.
First, What is Automated Staff Scheduling?
At the risk of an understatement, technology is everywhere. From the boardroom to the family room, tech endeavors to make our lives easier. Virtual assistants can tell us whether or not we need an umbrella before we peek out the window. You can turn on your outdoor lights from anywhere in the world by simply picking up your phone. In healthcare settings, you can access patient monitoring while your patient recovers at home, update patient records, automate medication dispensing, and there are countless ways tech is used in diagnostics and more.
Automated scheduling is also tech-driven. Through software, this efficient tool creates and manages the schedules for healthcare staff by analyzing your needs based on patient care. Automated scheduling eliminates the need for paper schedules and data entry, which in turn prevents human error, which can leave you short-staffed at any time. Tech-driven staffing tools make scheduling more effective by optimizing staffing to meet the level of need your healthcare facility requires.
How Does Automated Staffing Work?
You might wonder how this amazing tool works so many miracles. Simply put, the automated scheduling software uses algorithms to create schedules based on specific factors. Predictive analysis allows the automated scheduler to determine the necessary staff through factors such as certifications, skill level, availability, and labor protocol.
The scheduler typically notifies staff about available shifts, changes to the schedule, staffing needs, and other pertinent information via text, in-app, or other platforms designed to keep staff up-to-date. Healthcare staff are offered the opportunity to drop shifts or pick up additional shifts to answer the staffing needs of the facility.
What’s Driving Tech-Driven Staffing in Healthcare?
Of course, all of this sounds great, but what exactly drives this tech-driven wave of automated scheduling in healthcare? There are several factors behind the surge in demand for this software/tool. The top motivators are:
- Short-Staffing: It’s a well-known fact that the nursing shortage, especially in specialty areas, is crippling existing scheduling. High-turnover rates and far fewer nurses than ever before, combined with increased patient populations, set the stage for extreme staff shortages, which put patients and your facilities at risk.
- Administrative Burden: Endless administrative workloads lead to inefficiency and burnout. Data-entry scheduling is one of the tasks that admins cite as one they wish they could do without. Juggling staff availability, the sudden need for time off, etc., takes up a great deal of time and energy. Automating staff scheduling frees up administrate staff to focus on the greater needs of the healthcare organization.
- Increase in Patient Demand: As the large population of “Boomers” ages, there is an increase in demand for care in post-retirement communities. As the population in general grows, the demand for healthcare increases. These demands stress healthcare organizations and place a burden on staff scheduling.
- Advances in Technology: Through the evolution of AI, tech-driven scheduling can predict staff “no-shows, ” analyze data to match patient needs with staff criteria, and create schedules that optimize efficiency and patient care. The predictive ability of this technology also enables the scheduler to address scheduling conflicts.
There are many other factors, often unique to the organization, that drive the demand for automated scheduling in healthcare. Depending on your staffing requirements, protocols, policies, and compliance, tech-driven scheduling has the ability to be customized accordingly.
How to Implement Automated Scheduling in Your Healthcare Organization
Whether a huge medical center in an urban setting or a small rural clinic, ensuring proper coverage for quality patient care should always be the main objective. The degree of patient care you provide depends on staffing. Understaffing places a burden on your entire organization. Overstaffing greatly impacts the bottom line and efficiency.
Every healthcare organization has pain points, and one of the most lamented is staff scheduling. Staff availability, necessary certifications, requests for PTO, sick days, and compliance make staffing a tall task for anyone in administration. That’s where automated scheduling removes the burden the most.
The successful implementation of automated scheduling for healthcare staff depends on clearly defined objectives. Assessing your current method, researching, and customizing software to your facility is a start. Here we delve into the implementation process a bit deeper.
Define Your Objectives Based on Assessment of Current Processes
Look for those areas of your current scheduling process that create inefficiency. The likely suspects are going to be found in scheduling conflicts, over-staffing, and short-staffing. Now, take the opportunity to record your expectations and that which you hope will be achieved through the implementation of automated scheduling. These objectives may include optimizing staffing levels, improving morale and satisfaction among healthcare staff, and reducing the burden on administrative employees.
Research Your Options
Look for software that performs as you need it to now and as your healthcare organization grows. Find a solution that includes customization. Choose an automated scheduling tool that addresses all of your concerns regarding staff and clinical needs. And most importantly, work with a medical staffing organization that has the experience and technical knowledge to evolve as your organization evolves.
Set Up Your Automated Scheduling
- Employee data input is the foundation of your automated scheduling success. Make sure you include experience, skills, certifications, availability, and preferences.
- Next, set up your system according to your specific policies. Align your scheduler with your needs according to the workflow.
- Thoroughly train your staff to use the new scheduler appropriately. This takes time and dedication, in some cases.
Remember, feedback is essential to the success of automated scheduling. In those first few months, gather feedback from staff, including management, regarding ease of use, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Use this information to evaluate your automated scheduling process and make all the necessary adjustments to optimize the scheduler for your healthcare organization.
Benefits of Implementing Automated Staffing in Your Healthcare Facility
By now, you likely see many benefits your healthcare organization could derive from automated scheduling. Customizing the software to your specifications makes this tool all the more desirable. Let’s look at how this tech-driven staffing tool improves the quality of your healthcare organization in more detail.
- Automated Scheduling Saves Time: In streamlining your scheduling process, you save valuable staff time. Effortless automated scheduling ends the grueling task of entering data and creating schedules manually. Changes are made within the scheduler itself.
- Reduction in Human Error: Incorrect information and miscommunication create some of the biggest headaches when manually creating schedules. Automated scheduling helps prevent these errors.
- More Rapid Scheduling: Last-minute changes and specific staff needs are much easier (and more efficiently) addressed via automated scheduling. Predictive analysis evaluates staffing needs much faster than administrative personnel can.
- Improved Patient Care: By avoiding understaffing, nurses and healthcare staff are better able to focus on patient care.
- Reduction in Staff Burnout: By implementing automated staff scheduling, you ensure more fair and predictable shifts. This helps reduce stress, which often leads to burnout for healthcare workers. The transparency and improved communication, combined with the flexibility provided by the automated scheduling tool, promote a sense of job satisfaction and improved morale, the cornerstones of staff retention.
- Improved Patient Satisfaction: Proper staff coverage, due to predictive workflow analysis, reduces wait times and improves the patient experience.
- Budgetary Savings: When you optimize staffing levels through automated scheduling, you avoid unnecessary overtime. Staff is utilized much more efficiently, which directly affects your bottom line.
- Communication Improves: Automated scheduling improves communication between staff as well as management. Improved communication goes a very long way toward employee satisfaction.
- Data: This tech-driven scheduler provides analytics you can use for improved operation of your facility. You can look at trends in staff scheduling, patient census, and predict upcoming conflicts and needs based on the analytics provided by your automated scheduling for healthcare staff.
Automated scheduling in healthcare isn’t new. But with the evolution of technology, it provides a more efficient way to schedule staff than ever before. And when you work with the right team, automated scheduling is seamless. The ease of use means you start earning the benefits of automated scheduling for your healthcare staff on day one. Improved efficiency, better patient care, optimum use of resources, and improved staff satisfaction and retention are just some of the many benefits you’ll reap with automated scheduling.
It’s Time to Automate Your Scheduling
In summary, automated scheduling backed by ever-evolving technology provides a faster, more accurate, and efficient process for staff scheduling than prior methods. Management is able to create schedules, make rapid adjustments, and accommodate staff needs more effectively than ever before. Predictive analysis allows management to create optimal staff schedules crucial to patient care. Automated scheduling is a win-win for all.
We Provide Solutions
If you’re ready to automate your scheduling through tech-driven staffing in your healthcare facility, it’s time you partner with BOS Medical Staffing. We offer a full range of staffing solutions to optimize your patient care. Remove your staffing burdens today and never again worry about under-staffing or over-staffing your healthcare organization. Please contact BOS Medical Staffing and let’s get started solving all your staffing needs.
