Northside : System-Wide Implementation of Schedule360 Healthcare Scheduling Software
April 22, 2021
In 2016, Northside Hospital announced that it would continue the system-wide rollout of Schedule360’s Physician Scheduling Software for its respective Surgical Services Groups. Northside Health System is a leading healthcare provider for the Greater Atlanta area and at the time of this announcement consisted of three facilities: Northside Hospital Atlanta, Northside Hospital Forsyth, and Northside Hospital Cherokee along with more than 120 outpatient clinics.
Since 2016 they’ve only continued to expand and are currently in acquisition mode, so they will soon have five hospitals to manage. Northside represents the largest medical staff in the Southeast U.S with over 2500 physicians.
Here’s a quick look back at how Schedule360 was able to help Northside Hospital then and continues to be of help to them today.
Enterprise Staff Scheduling Across Multiple Locations
In 2014, Northside began using Schedule360® in their Emergency Departments for all three campuses.
After a successful launch, the next phase of implementation in mid-2015 was focused on their Women’s Services Groups (Labor & Delivery and Family-Centered Care). Iram Hernandez, IT Coordinator explains, “As Northside delivers more babies each year than any other hospital in the U.S., our Women’s Services Departments are extremely large with many employees and require a nurse scheduling software with features that allow flexibility based on the respective scheduling needs of these units. We felt that if Schedule360® could be successful with these groups, this success would translate to the other departments within the system. After a successful implementation for the Emergency and Women’s Services nursing and provider teams, we decided to move forward with an aggressive rollout of Schedule360® system-wide, launching a new group (multiple units) every month until all Patient Care Departments were live.”
Schedule Transparency, Configuration, and Customer Support for Surgical Services
Tisha Coleman, Surgical Services System Analyst comments further on working with Schedule360®. “Schedule360® has worked extremely well for our respective Surgical Services physicians and teams. The Schedule360® team is with us every step of the way for launching new departments and is very hands-on with training for our physicians and providers. They continue to take our suggestions for enhancing the system to better meet our needs and deliver custom changes in a short period of time. The ability for Schedule360® to configure specific features by both department and employee-type allows a greater level of flexibility to satisfy our scheduling managers and employee end-users.”
Schedule360® is a highly scalable solution designed to automate healthcare scheduling and staffing. Schedule360® harnesses the power of the web through a rules-based system to provide the ultimate in schedule automation while ensuring the correct clinical mix for every shift and every unit within a facility or system. Schedule360® can be accessed by all employees from any mobile device with internet connection, allowing full optimization of all FTE and PRN employees. Self-scheduling and schedule transparency, paired with comprehensive, proactive real-time reports are just a few of the many amazing features healthcare scheduling administrators get to experience with Schedule360’s healthcare scheduling software.
Schedule Transparency
Our healthcare and nurse scheduling software provides complete schedule transparency, giving schedulers and administrators the ability to view the schedule in ways that make managing schedules for multiple locations a much easier process. Physicians, nurses, and other healthcare staff can also view their schedule 24/7 from any mobile device with internet access. Transparent schedules posted in advance mean fewer changes are needed to the schedule and drastically reduce the number of missed shifts because staff have more time to plan around their work schedule.
Self-Scheduling
Give your nurses and physicians a sense of freedom and flexibility over their schedule, with our rules-based self-scheduling feature, while also saving your scheduler time that would otherwise be spent on scheduling. After shifts are released for the upcoming schedule and immediate booking of set scheduled shifts, any remaining open shifts are made available for self-scheduling by qualified staff.
Management still defines setup, and features can be turned on or off for the entire department or for each employee.
Automated Tasks
In order to achieve operational efficiency, every resource needs to be optimized, but to do that, you must be able to measure, track, and report time, attendance, and shortages which can be a grueling process, especially if you’re resorting to outdated, manual scheduling methods.
Automating tasks such as employee shift swaps, self-scheduling, credential tracking, time-off requests, and keeping track of overtime drastically reduces the amount of time spent on maintaining the nursing schedule, freeing up nursing admins to focus on other more important tasks. Optimize your healthcare workforce without sacrificing your valuable time and resources by using nurse scheduling software.
Enhanced Messaging Capabilities
Schedule360’s scheduling software comes equipped with an integrated messaging tool, along with enhanced messaging capabilities to improve and streamline your communication process. Our online, web-based solution for messaging provides admins with segmented messaging options to message different groups based on current needs. Administrators can select staff within one unit, department, facility, enterprise, or even across multiple campuses. They can also choose to dispatch a message to only certain staff scheduled to work that day or send out a message to everyone on the list.
Less Agency Dependence
Schedule360’s award-winning nurse scheduling software is the most advanced, clinically focused nurse scheduling solution with multiple innovative features designed to optimize staff scheduling by ensuring you always have the proper coverage for every shift. By implementing our nurse scheduling software, admins are provided with a comprehensive view of the schedule in real-time. See the entire schedule at a glance, including OT thresholds and deficits in target work hours. Managers and administrators can optimize current nursing and clinical staff and resources, therefore greatly reducing costly agency dependency.
Reduced OT Costs
Mandatory overtime is required in many facilities, and Schedule360 manages mandatory overtime with fairness and equitability for all staff. Overtime is tracked, ensuring it’s in compliance with set rules and regulations. Overtime alerts are built into the system, allowing employees to request to work OT shifts, and admins can override the set alert and approve the OT. Our nurse scheduling software allows for easy tracking of overtime-related costs, so they can be addressed before they become problematic and out of control.
Last Minute Shift Scheduling
The stress from having to fill urgent, last-minute shift openings can be a huge pain point for schedulers, but our software makes urgent needs less of a burden to fill. Using our healthcare scheduling software, you can quickly communicate any hot shift needs with your staff 12, 24, or 48 hours in advance using the internal messaging platform, complete with time-stamped features that notify administrators when a staff member opens a message.
Real-Time Reporting
Forecasting shift needs is made so much easier with real-time reporting that comes equipped with our scheduling software. Integrated data compiling allows one-click management of employee compliance work targets. The ability to oversee multiple locations makes managing the scheduling process so much simpler.
API Integrations
Schedule360 users experience the power of our robust platform with API integrations and can easily exchange data with other software applications. Schedule360 integrates seamlessly with your current process including leading payroll, HR, and CRM software and services to save you tons of time and simplify your entire scheduling process. Schedule360 uses ORDS (Oracle REST Data Services) to efficiently and securely transfer employee credentials, time-off requests, schedules, and punch data between our software and third-party applications.
Ease of Implementation
Schedule360’s easy implementation process is designed to get you setup with a scheduling software solution that’s configured to fit your needs right away. We assign a Schedule360 representative to work closely with you to get an in-depth understanding of your unique scheduling needs, provide expert consultation, and coordinate your setup with our IT team, training department, and account administration. Throughout the implementation process and training we do all of the heavy lifting of data entry for you and provide you with a step-by-step guided plan aimed to make the entire implementation process as seamless and stress-free as possible.
Schedule360 is Designed to Grow with You
Schedule360 is proud to offer a software solution that is highly configurable and can be set up for virtually any type of business, no matter the size, and it doesn’t have to happen overnight either. There is absolutely no pressure to feel like you have to take on Schedule360 and implement it into an entire facility all at once. Rather, you can ease into the process slowly and surely, at whatever pace works best for you, by implementing our software solution unit by unit. Once you become familiar with the first unit and realize just how easy and wonderful our software solution really is, you’ll be excited to start implementing our user-friendly platform to additional units.
Northside is a perfect example of how Schedule360 can be designed to grow with you. We started by implementing our award-winning software solution in their ER, then nursing, rehab, and surgical services. We feel confident that once you begin using our software and discover how easy and successful our solution is, you’ll want to keep implementing it, no matter how many health systems you acquire in the future.
Schedule360 Going Forward
Schedule360 understands the changes going on in the healthcare industry today and we realize the way businesses operate post-pandemic is drastically different than what it was before. Creating and managing a nursing schedule during this time creates a unique set of challenges, and schedulers are feeling the pressure as they’re tasked with overseeing and approving scheduling changes, keeping a close eye on OT thresholds, and trying to maintain safe staffing levels to ensure that patients are still receiving the quality of care they need.
We want you to know that you don’t have to go it alone. While it may seem like an impossible task, Schedule360 can help. We have the right tools to simplify your entire scheduling process, allowing you to optimize your workforce, without having to sacrifice your time, resources, or sanity.
When you’re ready to get control of your scheduling tasks, Schedule360 is here for you. Contact us today for a configured demo to see exactly how our nurse scheduling software can work with your for a seamless transition and customized solution to your nurse scheduling challenges.
*This post has been updated November 2021.