Nurse Self-Scheduling – Rules and Guidelines

May 19, 2020

Adding rules-based self-scheduling to a nursing unit can create transparency for your nursing staff. However, you need to be clear to eliminate confusion.

Communication plays a vital role in the healthcare field, especially when it comes to scheduling. Scheduling for a healthcare facility can be a juggling act, as there are multiple units and several employees holding various credentials and skill sets. Miscommunication is bound to happen from time to time. Implementing nurse self-scheduling software can greatly help minimize these communication mishaps, but it only works if everyone follows the rules and guidelines. The question is, how do you get everyone working on the same page and following the rules when dealing with larger scale companies such as a healthcare facility?

To minimize this potential pain point, be proactive and choose a scheduling software with the proper features:

Internal Messaging Feature

Before nurse scheduling software, the scheduling manager likely spent hours making phone calls, leaving voicemails and sending emails that would sometimes go unread or unreturned. One extremely helpful feature to scheduling software is an internal messaging system that allows administrators to send messages with the ability to see if a message was read. This prevents an employee from claiming they never received the message, and saves time previously used to follow-up.

Set Rules and Guidelines

Nurse scheduling software allows you to set rules and guidelines that restrict certain actions based on things like overtime thresholds, credentials, and skill levels. This eliminates many common communication mishaps, such as employees picking up shifts they aren’t qualified to fulfill.

Transparency

Employees will have complete schedule transparency with 24/7 access to their schedule from any mobile device with internet access. Nurse scheduling software avoids any confusion or question over when an employee needs to report for a shift.

Shift Reminder Feature

With nurse scheduling software, you can send your employees shift reminders, which drastically reduces no shows for shifts. Avoid those awkward communication moments of having to call an employee to tell them they were scheduled to work, as nurse scheduling software does it for you. This is extremely helpful during peak times of seasonal illnesses when staff are out unexpectedly, or demands in your unit spike.

Streamline and Optimize Time-Off Requests

Time-off requests can be extremely complicated with manual scheduling processes, such as pen and paper or spreadsheets. Let nurse scheduling software streamline and optimize the entire process. Nurse scheduling software allows you to establish a set of clearly defined rules when it comes to an employee time off request policy. Guidelines can require approval by management, eliminating communication mishaps and conflicts.

Shift Swap with Incorporated Rules

Employees can swap shifts using rules-based configuration without having to go through the scheduling manager. When a swap is made, management is notified, and can review and approve if needed.

Automated Messages

With nurse scheduling software, the system can send automated messages to keep track of everything, including when an employee’s schedule is changed, such as flex, float, canceled shift, a change in shift time, etc.

In order to truly maximize all of the amazing benefits that nurse scheduling software provides, make sure to choose a scheduling software with the right kind of features. Schedule360 is the solution you need to avoid these all to common miscommunication pitfalls that can occur. Contact us today for a customized demo of our scheduling software solution.