Streamline Your Nursing Unit With a Centralized Approach

July 25, 2022

Staff scheduling continues to be a growing concern for hospitals and healthcare facilities. Many hospitals are accustomed to managing staffing from a unit-based perspective. When management follows staffing practices simply because it’s “always been done this way” it can cloud their vision and miss opportunities to optimize qualified staff for optimizing department schedules.

The time and energy schedulers spend creating, managing, and updating staff schedules is often an exhausting,  inefficient process and while a necessary task in your workflow, if you’re not using the right scheduling software to manage your workforce, you’re likely wasting time and costly man-hours that could be better allocated elsewhere.

Nurses smiling and looking at the camera. They are standing in the hallway of a hospital.

To better optimize employee schedules and gain a higher-level view of your schedule, Centralized Scheduling is an efficient practice that can lead to more filled shifts while reducing scheduling errors. The right nurse scheduling software allows you to view your entire workforce with the click of a button. Schedulers can view reports and schedules by location with drill-down management of department and employee schedules. Adopting a centralized approach is scalable and ideal for any healthcare facility, especially for large multi-location hospitals that utilize Float Pool employees. Centralized scheduling can support specialized units with innovative features, even if other units incorporate a different configuration with the same software.

By more efficiently managing the nuances of your nursing units, your entire workforce and shift flow will improve, providing greater employee satisfaction that will translate into better patient care. Whether you are overseeing one location or multiple locations, managing your nursing schedules from a centralized platform will streamline your entire process. From scheduling shifts, filling gaps in coverage, managing your employee OT & Target work hours, handling call-offs, and having a standard, rules-based process for time off requests, holiday scheduling, and self-scheduling, you will have a better handle on workforce management. An organized solution through the right staff scheduling software will help you increase productivity with the same management hours.

Features include:

24/7 Access with Full Transparency

The right scheduling software provides complete schedule transparency and gives 24/7 web-based access to the real-time staff schedule for all employees. Having 24/7 access to current department messages and scheduling needs in a self-service system eliminates many manual tasks by management, reducing time and resources spent on answering scheduling related emails and calls. An automated scheduling software solution allows full transparency of all scheduled provider shifts across multiple locations, including a gap coverage report that identifies open shifts for backfill that otherwise may have slipped through the cracks leading to mandatory overtime, agency labor reliance, and overwhelmed staff.

Self-Scheduling and Shift Swaps

The benefits of self-scheduling options are becoming more obvious as more nursing units are adopting this method of shift scheduling management. Self-scheduling is rules-based and easier to set up and implement than you might think. Nurses can search and accept shifts and even swap shifts with fellow nurses within their licensure and qualifications based on guidelines set forth by management. Self-scheduling promotes a healthier work/life balance for all staff and will help management optimize staff more efficiently.

Messaging

Schedule360 scheduling software includes internal messaging capabilities with the option to segment recipients, eliminating over-messaging into the void and directing pertinent information to all staff, only qualified staff, those falling under their target work hours, those currently working shifts, or employees not on the schedule but are available to work.

Fair and Transparent Holiday Scheduling

Establishing a set of clearly defined rules for which staff can take time off and when is essential anytime but especially during the holidays. Schedule360 provides a robust holiday preference module, helping management build holiday schedules with staff preferences in mind, while simultaneously ensuring adequate coverage and balanced care for all holidays.

Quick Overview of How We Can Help

  • A well-managed schedule that is easy to update and oversee will drastically reduce agency labor and in turn increase positive patient experiences.
  • Thanks to credential tracking and skills management, shifts are skill-balanced so nurses with higher credentials aren’t left to carry more than their share of the patient load.
  • Transparency leads to a better understanding of the schedule and ensures proper coverage and fair distribution of hours, and overtime, creating better workplace morale when the entire staff is on the same page with a common purpose of providing better patient care.
  • Self-scheduling options and the ability to swap shifts with other nurses gives nurses some control over their schedule. This leads to a better work/life balance and makes it easier to schedule life around work.
  • A user-friendly cloud-based platform that is easy to update and oversee will drastically reduce time spent on staff scheduling related tasks and updates.

Create Less Turnover with the Right Scheduling Software

Schedule360 has the tools you need to help reduce mandatory OT, boost employee morale, and drastically improve your entire staff scheduling process. Better morale is key to retaining nurses. If your staff is happy, they enjoy coming to work. Nurses who feel appreciated don’t look for new positions elsewhere.

If you’re ready to experience a more efficient way to streamline your nursing unit with a centralized approach, contact Schedule360 today.  Schedule360 We Know Scheduling™