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EPSKED Customizer Details
Step 2:  In what sequences can the shifts be worked?

The second step in EPSKED customization is describing how your shifts relate to each other. (You don't really want EPSKED scheduling you for a morning shift after you have just worked the previous night!).

EPSKED tracks relationships between each scheduled shift and all other shifts in the schedule for the same day and for the two days following the scheduled shift. You classify the desirability of working all subsequent shifts into one of four categories:

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EPSKED Customizer Details
Step 3:  Which shifts are normally scheduled on which days of the week?

Many emergency departments schedule different shifts on different types of days. For example, your schedule may require scheduling of different shifts on weekends or holidays than on weekdays.

Here is an entry indicating to EPSKED that the Day and Night shifts are scheduled every day of the week, while the SWING shift is normally scheduled only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Some details:

• Day Type is the general name for a category of days (e.g., Weekdays) all of which have the same scheduled shifts.

• From the scheduling program, you can change the shifts used on any day in the schedule to the shifts used for a different Day Type, or add and remove individual shifts. For example, if July 4 falls on a Tuesday but is usually a busy day for your department, you may want to change its shifts to those of the Weekend Day Type to obtain additional coverage. Alternatively, you could create and select other shifts for a Holiday Day Type, which has no days selected from the Days Normally Used buttons.

• You can create as many as fifteen different Day Types. Additionally, the scheduling program allows individual shifts to be added and removed from days in your schedules.

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EPSKED Customizer Details
Step 4: What appearance do you want from your printed schedule?

The basic appearance of the printed schedule is that of a calendar. Within each day, several lines of schedule information can be printed. On the top line of each day is printed that day's date. The remaining lines in each day are used to print the names of the providers scheduled for that day.

Your mission in this customization step (should you decide to accept it) is to assign a line number to each shift used in your schedule. The assigned line number determines where the name of the provider scheduled for that shift is printed for each day that the shift is used. For example, assign your earliest daytime shift to line number one, so that the name of the scheduled provider is printed as the first (top) name for the day.

Here are entries that position the Day, Swing and Night shifts:

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EPSKED Customizer Details
Step 5: What summary statistics do you want EPSKED to track and
              display?   

When you create schedules you are interested not only in printing them but also in obtaining some statistical information. Usually you would want to know the total number of hours worked by each provider or other summary information such as the total number of night shifts worked, or holiday shifts or weekend shifts or clinic shifts or weekend night shifts or weekend holiday shifts. Each of these names represents a category that EPSKED can summarize, both individually for each provider and as a total for the entire schedule (for example, total number of hours in the schedule) and as a cumulative total for one or more schedules. This summary information is easily displayed and printed whenever you want.

Here are some entries creating several sample summary categories:

Some details:

• The lines in each column below the Category Title label contain the name of the summary category defined by that column.

  • The first of these top lines is a title used to identify the type of shifts included in the category.

  • The second of the two top lines in each column usually displays either the word "SHIFTS" or the word "HOURS", indicating which you want summarized in the category. For example, if the title entered in the first line was "NIGHT", you could create summary categories for either "NIGHT HOURS" or "NIGHT SHIFTS", or both.)

  • Simple summary categories can be easily combined to create linked summary categories such as the WEEKEND NIGHT SHIFTS category above. Some other possibilities are  "HOLIDAY NIGHT SHIFTS", "WEEKEND DAY HOURS", or "FRIDAY NIGHT SHIFTS" up to a maximum of thirty(!) different summary categories.

• The lower group of lines in each column below the Shifts Used label lists the names of the shifts included in the summary category. For example, an 
  "EVENING SHIFTS" category might list SWING on these lower lines as the name of the shifts to include in that category. During scheduling, whenever a physician is scheduled for a SWING shift, EPSKED updates his or her summary information for that category.

• Pretty neat, huh?

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EPSKED Customizer Details
Step 6:  Who are your providers and what are their scheduling
               preferences?

The sixth (and final!) step in customizing EPSKED is identifying the providers who work the schedule you have defined in the previous five steps.

Don't be overwhelmed by the number of options! Shown in the sample provider Entry Form are all customization requests specific to an individual provider. In addition to a name, other information is displayed. Most important to you are probably the usual number of hours and shifts requested by the provider for each schedule, the number of days in a row the provider prefers to work (referred to as Shifts In A Row on the program screen), and shifts the provider is unable to work or for which he has special preferences. Again, don't be overwhelmed by the number of options! EPSKED can produce schedules even if all you do is simply enter the names of your providers. The remaining options are either automatically set to standard values or do not need to be used, but are available if required by your schedule.

When the EPSKED scheduling program creates a schedule it attempts to match the requested values as closely as possible for each provider. The task of entering these data values for each provider is greatly simplified by use of a template.

Some comments if you're interested in more details:

• The first row below the provider name and title information contains EPSKED Customizer entries related to requested hours and shifts. How many hours and shifts should be scheduled for each provider? You may enter requests for specific numbers of shifts in up to three selected summary categories. For example, you might want to customize EPSKED to accept scheduling requests for specific numbers of night, weekend and evening shifts for each of your providers, as was done here.

• The second row below the provider name and title information contains EPSKED Customizer entries related to sequences of shifts. How many shifts in a row does each physician want to work? Are there any shifts, such as night shifts, for which your providers want to work fewer in a row than for other shifts? Do any providers want to either work the entire weekend or have the entire weekend off? If you customized more than one Shift Relations Model, which one should be used for each provider?

• The third row below the provider name and title information contains EPSKED Customizer entries related to preferences for shift types. Are there any of the customized shifts that an individual provider cannot work? (For example, physicians or physician assistants who work only in a fast track area may not be able to work shifts in the main emergency department.) Likewise, are there any shifts that individual providers prefer working or dislike working?

• The fourth row below the provider name and title information contains EPSKED Customizer entries related to contact information. What is the provider's voice telephone number? (This is used to print a provider telephone roster at the bottom of individual schedules.) What is the provider's fax telephone number? (You can fax schedules directly from EPSKED.) What is the provider's email address? (You can email messages and schedules directly from EPSKED.) 

• The fifth row below the provider name and title information contains EPSKED Customizer entries related to EPSKED optional Cycle Scheduling feature. Are there any repetitive cycles of shifts worked or days off that you want EPSKED to automatically pre-schedule? The simple cycle selections shown above for Dr. Friedman automatically takes him off every other weekend of every future schedule. It also automatically schedules him for the Day shift every second Thursday of the month and Off for all shifts every third Friday of each month. Here are the cycle entries from the optional Cycle Entry screens that create the cycles selected for Dr. Friedman:

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