Nurse Scheduling Solutions to Meet Current Staffing Challenges

August 24, 2022

Short-staffed hospitals are managing surging patient demands and are quickly determining how to best utilize and stretch their available resources and workforce. Addressing the unique scheduling challenges nursing admins face today requires effective workforce strategies. The right technology will be your best ally to lower turnover rates, overtime costs, and critical gaps in coverage.

Nurse talking to an elderly patient.

Shifting your workforce to meet real-time needs through a manual strategy to efficiently allocate your workforce is a full-time job. Your highly qualified staff are your most valued resource, and in the current environment, they are stretched to their limits with an outpouring of needs and demands on their time. Your unit’s goal is better patient care, and if your scheduling process hinders efficiency, it’s time to consider a better strategy.

Enterprise Staff Scheduling

Schedule360 provides a complete real-time view of multiple departments enabling charge nurses and administrators to view the schedule in ways that make staffing for multiple locations a more transparent and straightforward process. Schedule360 offers unlimited scalability, so whether you need to schedule staff for one hospital, or multiple locations, we have you covered. As your needs evolve, our software can be tailored to meet your current processes and patient demand.

Customer-Driven Configurable Features

Recently one of our customers expressed a need for a feature that would allow them to group several branches of their enterprise on the interface. This feature has proved to be extremely useful. It grants admin access to all the branches you want to put in a group. By grouping select branches, you no longer must log into each branch separately to view metrics.

We have an extensive catalog of configurable features that have been developed from customer feedback. We know scheduling, and our software is designed to continually evolve through configurable features for efficient workforce management. Healthcare staff scheduling is unique and often complex, and our configurability and transparency addresses  those challenges. In a time where hospitals are tasked to do more with less and this expectation strains clinical resources, optimizing your staffing processes will have a positive impact on your entire enterprise.

Efficient Float Pool Management

Your float pool staff are a valuable option for filling critical open shifts. The challenge most hospitals face is the balancing act of efficiently matching an employee’s availability and credentials to the specific requirements of multiple shift openings.

As a secure cloud-hosted solution, Schedule360 makes it possible to support real-time scheduling and communication with float pool staff 24/7. Schedule360 for float pools allows critical-need shift requests to be created directly into the system by unit managers or schedulers. Shifts are then instantly matched to qualified and available float pool staff, providing transparency and automated options for filling one or multiple shifts from a centralized interface.

Schedule360 provides configurable features for the level of access given to float pool staff allowing them to post current availability or self-schedule into float pool-only openings. One-click reporting for management illustrates in detail the float pool employee scheduled for each shift. The challenges related to managing last minute call-offs and cancellations is a common pain point for healthcare facilities. Not only will you streamline your payroll expenses but having a pool of consistent staff available to fill urgent gaps in coverage will eliminate the need to continually train agency labor to your unit processes. This will improve staff morale and patient care.

Schedule360’s award-winning nurse scheduling software is the most advanced, clinically focused nurse scheduling solution with innovative, configurable features designed to optimize healthcare staff scheduling. By implementing our nurse scheduling software, admins have a comprehensive view of the entire schedule in real-time, including OT thresholds and deficits in target work hours. You can save time and money by optimizing your current nursing and clinical staff. Efficiently utilizing internal resources to fill open unit needs will significantly decrease agency labor dependence.

With the right staff scheduling software, you can achieve:

  • Efficiency on every shift
  • Balanced shifts
  • Less overtime
  • Flexibility in reallocating staff to meet demands
  • Efficient credential tracking
  • Target work hours
  • Less lapses in licensure
  • Better work/life balance
  • Better workplace morale
  • Schedule transparency
  • Standard procedures for schedule management
  • Enhanced messaging capabilities
  • Innovative features you can enable or disable
  • Comprehensive interface messaging capabilities
  • Easy, fully supported, and guided implementation process
  • API integration

Strategic Staffing Solutions Start with Schedule360

If you’re overwhelmed with scheduling tasks but feel there is no way you can implement something new right now, let’s talk. Schedule360 manages data entry through installation, training, and configuration because we want to bring you a simplified solution, not more work to tackle. We’re confident the features and configurability of our robust software solution will save you time and resources when creating healthcare schedules. We provide the proper scheduling tools you need to help you take control of your staff scheduling and create efficiency on every shift.

At Schedule360, We Know Scheduling™ and have developed an award-winning solution to your common nurse scheduling pain points. Contact us today for a configured demo of our nurse scheduling software to see how we can streamline and optimize your entire scheduling process.