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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS |
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What are some of the new features in EPSKED
5? |
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Version 5 of EPSKED, the emergency physician scheduling program, contains multiple
new and enhanced features that represent significant
improvements over previous versions of EPSKED. To assist
with your migration from EPSKED 4.1 to EPSKED 5,
click here
to see a summary of these changes.
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Is an Extended
Maintenance Plan for EPSKED necessary? |
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You can purchase EPSKED 5 without the Extended
Maintenance Plan, but to ensure immediate access to
the latest EPSKED updates and to assure receipt of a
new activation code in case of computer failure or
other mishap, we strongly recommend purchasing
Extended Maintenance. Note that if you are outside
of maintenance and need any of these services, you
will need to purchase maintenance plus pay a
reinstatement fee for us to be able to assist you. |
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What is EPSKED Assist? |
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EPSKED becomes EPSKED Assist when it is run on an unregistered
machine using a registered database. At no additional charge, EPSKED
Assist can be installed on as many computers as you need. In
order to permit administrative access to schedules using EPSKED, we have not
restricted the ability to retrieve, manually edit, print, or do computerized
scheduling of schedules in EPSKED Assist. Only the "Create a new
schedule" and "Manually enter a preexisting schedule" are restricted
features and are not accessible in EPSKED Assist. (This policy is
subject to change in the future, but we do not anticipate imposing any
further restrictions.) If you are using EPSKED with WebSked,
EPSKED Assist can be used to publish and download schedules to and from
WebSked.
As long as you feel comfortable transferring
our schedule database between computers and always use your registered
machine to create the original unfinished schedule, you can use EPSKED in
its EPSKED Assist mode on as many computers as you feel are necessary.
EPSKED Assist will meet the needs of most users who want to use EPSKED on
more than one computer.
Again, note that in order for EPSKED Assist to
create request forms for current schedules, you will need to first
create an unfinished schedule for that time period on a registered computer
(one on which an activation code has been entered), then transfer the
database to the computer that uses EPSKED Assist. The new schedule can then
be retrieved in EPSKED Assist and used for scheduling, just as if EPSKED
Assist had been used to create the original schedule. |
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How can I send a copy of
my schedule for you to look at? I have questions about EPSKED that
are difficult to explain unless you can see how I set up EPSKED for
my schedule. |
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You can easily email your schedule information to us directly
from the EPSKED scheduling program. Select the Help...Email-to-ByteBloc
dropdown menu option, then select the Schedule Database option. (This option
can be used even if you do not have EPSKED Email working on your computer.)
From the Help...Email-to-ByteBloc dropdown menu you also have the option of
sending a copy of any scheduling screen you have questions about, or simply
sending a message.
Alternatively, you can also save the database on a floppy disk which can
then be mailed to us. From either the EPSKED Scheduler or Customizer
program,
select the File...Backup data dropdown menu option, then follow the
instructions.
Please be assured that all information sent to us is considered
confidential, and will be used by us only for purposes of program
development.
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The
EPSKED version 4.1 installation program automatically updates all schedule
and configuration information from EPSKED 3.0. For this update to work, you
must install EPSKED version 4.1 on the same computer where your previous
version of EPSKED is located.
Important note:
Your original EPSKED data and schedule files will not be altered and EPSKED
3.0 can still be used as before even after the conversion to EPSKED 4.1 has
been performed. Any changes you make to schedules using EPSKED 4.1 after the
conversion will not be automatically incorporated into your EPSKED 3.0
schedules, and visa versa. |
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I've
spent a lot of time playing with the trial version of EPSKED that you
sent me, and really like the program. One concern: will I lose all the
configuration information and schedules that I created using the trial
version when I buy and install the regular version? |
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No, your
previous efforts will not be wasted. The unrestricted program
will automatically have full access to all previously entered
information. Also, conversion to an unrestricted version of EPSKED
is done by means of an activation password, so no reinstallation is
required. |
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When our
physicians start their shifts, they put their signature on a sign-in
sheet. I spend an hour every month just typing up a blank schedule with
signature lines. Is there any way to automate doing this from EPSKED? |
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EPSKED can print a blank schedule. This feature was designed to allow sign
ups for hand scheduled shifts, but should work well for your purpose.
Start to print your schedule as you normally do, but instead of selecting
the usual Master, Personalized master or Individual schedule options, select
the Blank schedule option at the bottom of the What to Print selections.
EPSKED prints a schedule with each shift represented by a blank line which
you can use as your signature line. If you use the Shift Name Left option,
the abbreviated name of each shift will be printed to the left of each line. |
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I
would like to use EPSKED on my home
computer, then transfer the schedule to our department secretary's
computer so she can keep track of changes and overtime when the
schedule is actually worked. Does this violate my license agreement?
How can I safely transfer the schedules?
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To allow for
this type of use, ByteBloc Software will provide, at no extra charge,
unlimited use of additional copies of EPSKED
in its EPSKED Assist mode.
(EPSKED
Assist allows use of one purchased copy of EPSKED on multiple computers
without requiring additional activation codes. All EPSKED features are
activated in EPSKED Assist except the ability to create new schedule
calendars.) However, you should be cautious about doing so. The problem: it is
possible to lose schedules or configuration changes unless you unfailingly
copy changes made on one computer to the second computer before making more
changes from the Customizer or to the changed schedule on the
second computer. (Got that?)
That said, the actual process used for transferring data between computers
is quite simple. Select the File...Backup dropdown menu option
from either the EPSKED scheduling or Customizer, then click the
Help button on the EPSKED Backup window that is displayed.
From that
Select
Backup Drive
help screen there is a link to Synchronizing data between two
computers that contains full instructions. |
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When I
have one of the physician's schedule exactly as I want it, how can I
prevent EPSKED from revising it during later computerized schedule revision? |
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Tack
the physician's entire schedule in place from the Highlight One
Provider screen. To display that screen, click the Highlight
One Provider button from the Schedule Review screen. Select the
schedule of the physician that you do not want EPSKED to revise, then click
the Tack button (or press the <+> key on your keyboard) to tack all of that
physician's scheduled shifts. EPSKED can still add shifts to the physician's
schedule during computerized schedule revision (if the physician needs more
hours or there is a shift that cannot be otherwise scheduled), but the
tacked shifts will not be changed. |
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I
have configured EPSKED's three "requested shifts" so that
the number of night, weekend and clinic shifts worked by our
physicians is equitable. Sometimes, when I create a schedule, there
are some physicians who are scheduled for several swing shifts but
few day shifts, others for several day shifts but few swing shifts.
How can I get EPSKED to automatically balance these shifts in
addition to the "requested shifts"? |
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[Editor Note: The "requested shift" entry area
is the three columns to the right of Requested
Hours column in the provider >
Entry Form
screen, reached by selecting Who
are your providers? from the Customizer
Main Menu
screen, then selecting the
Individual Provider option from the Provider
Information Customizer Menu.]
EPSKED
can improve the balance of these shifts using the "bias" feature. After you
create a schedule, press the Summary button from the
Schedule
Review screen to display the
Summary screen, then click the Bias button. Use the arrow
keys or the mouse cursor to move the highlighting to a scheduled value that
is too high, then click the Negative Bias button to mark it with a down
arrow. Positive bias (an up arrow) or double negative biasing (which forces
a reduction if at all possible) can also be used. EPSKED will try to reduce
the number of scheduled shifts with negative bias and increase the number
of scheduled shifts with positive bias during the next computerized schedule
revision,
allowing you to improve the balance of scheduling.
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We
schedule in six week blocks, but for pay purposes need to have scheduled
hours summarized and balanced every two weeks. Is there any way do to this
directly from EPSKED? |
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When you are scheduling in even numbered, multiweek periods (2,4,6,8,10,or
12 weeks), a special PAYPERIOD summary category is available. From the
Customizer Main Menu
screen select the What summary statistics do
you want EPSKED to track and display? option to display the
Statistics screen. In the Category name area at the top of any blank
column select the preset
PAYPERIOD option from the dropdown list box.
EPSKED will create PAYPERIOD categories matching each two week block in the
schedule. (For example, four week schedules have PAYPERIOD1 and PAYPERIOD2
titles; an additional PAYPERIOD3 title is created for six week schedules.)
Shifts scheduled in the first two weeks of a schedule are counted in
PAYPERIOD1 summary categories, shifts scheduled in the third and fourth
weeks of the schedule are counted in PAYPERIOD2 summary categories.
While you cannot request a specific number of hours in a PAYPERIOD,
PAYPERIOD summary categories can be "biased", allowing you to request that
EPSKED automatically increase or decrease the number of shifts scheduled in
a specific PAYPERIOD.
See the earlier question and answer
about using shift bias entries.
Scheduled statistics
for any period of time from one day to several years can be generated using
EPSKED's Cumulative Summary capability, and can be used to calculate hours
scheduled during a two week pay period even if you are creating monthly
schedules. |
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EPSKED's cumulative summary feature can be used to summarize scheduled
shifts and hours for time intervals from one day to as many years as you
have saved schedules. From
the Scheduler program Main Menu, click the Cumulative Summary option. From the list
of available schedules, select the schedule which includes the first day you
want to use in your summary, then click the "Start schedule mid summary..."
button. From the displayed calendar, select the first day you want to
include in the summary, then repeat the process for the last day of the
summary.
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Some of our physicians want
to work two shifts back to back on the same day. I've set "On the
Same Day" preferences [first column of the
Shift Relations screen, selection "How do your shifts
relate to each other?" from the Customizer
Main Menu] for these shifts to
Prefer for these physicians, but EPSKED seldom schedules these
shifts back to back as desired. Any suggestions? |
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Yes, but first an
explanation of what is happening. EPSKED initially attempts to schedule
shifts in "cascades" of several days at a time, generating the sequences of
shifts that it schedules from the Prefer (and sometimes Okay) shift
preferences created for One Day Later and Two Days Later. Depending upon
your shifts and how you have set up your shift relations, EPSKED is initially
scheduling shifts in Day-Day or Day-Swing sequences for your schedule. Once
this sequence is established, the Night shift on the same day as the first
scheduled Day shift now conflicts with working the already scheduled Day or
the Swing on the following day, and is therefore being not considered for
scheduling (since it conflicts with an already scheduled shift).
If desired, you can avoid this
difficulty by disabling EPSKED's cascade scheduling feature. From the
scheduling program, select the Options...Scheduling dropdown menu to display
a Scheduling Options window. Select the "Improve automatic same day
scheduling for providers who want to work more than one shift in a day."
option, then restart scheduling from a blank schedule. (You can clear the
current schedule by clicking the "Clear computer scheduled shifts..." option
button on the Schedule Review screen.)
This procedure should
increase the number of same day back-to-back shifts that are initially
scheduled by EPSKED. If this is still not satisfactory, you can easily reschedule
shifts manually to create the same day back-to-back sequences
(and tack them in place to make sure they are not rescheduled). Next have
EPSKED revise the schedule (click the press "Do computerized schedule
revision" button from the Schedule Review screen) to correct
imbalances in hours and shifts that were created by the manual revision.
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We create
a year's worth of resident physician schedules at a time, which are
distributed on the first day of the residency. While the balance of shifts
in each month's schedule is pretty close, the year end totals are not as
equitable as we would like. How can I ensure that everyone has worked the
same number of hours and shifts at the end of the year? |
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After every one or
two months of schedules are created, use the Cumulative Summary feature
(select the Cumulative Summary option from the Scheduler program Main Menu screen) to monitor the
physicians' cumulative totals of scheduled hours and shifts. Click the "Show
sums and targets" button to display the requested (target) values for your
Total Hours summary category and for any request shift categories that you
configured. Values for each provider are shown to the right of the
cumulative summary values, separated by a slash mark (/). If a provider has
been scheduled for significantly more total hours or shifts than requested,
the scheduled value is shaded in light red with a preceding plus sign (+).
If a provider has been scheduled for significantly fewer hours or shifts
than requested, the scheduled value is shaded in light green with a
preceding minus sign (-). This color highlighting is done to bring to your
attention the over-scheduling (red with a plus sign) or under-scheduling
(green with a minus sign) of a provider.
If one physician is
being be scheduled for too many of a certain type of shift (for example,
weekend shifts), click the Bias button while the cumulative summary is being
displayed and apply a "negative bias" to the physician for that summary
category. Bias entries made from the cumulative summary screen are
automatically applied to all retrieved and newly created schedules. During
all subsequent schedule creations and revisions, EPSKED tries to schedule
the physician for fewer of the negative biased shift, resulting in improved
long term balance of scheduled shifts.
If you have already
created all the schedules for the year but not yet distributed them,
retrieve and computer revise individual monthly schedules with the long term
bias entries in place. Review the cumulative summary for the year after each
revision and revise bias entries as needed until the cumulative summary is
as equitable as desired. You should be able to achieve a nearly exact
balance for the year's schedules in a short period of time!
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We create
a year's worth of resident physician schedules at a time. Our residents
rotate every six weeks for eight rotations (=48 weeks), then the last
rotation is only four weeks in length. I configured EPSKED to schedule in
six week blocks. What should I do for the final four weeks?
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The easiest way to
handle this is to maintain the six week scheduling period. In the Customizer
you'll need to define a Day Type that has no shifts (select the "Which days
of the week are your shifts normally scheduled?" option from the
Customizer - Main Menu
screen), then return to the scheduling program. When you start to schedule
the four week rotation, the first screen that displays the shifts that need
to be scheduled is titled Pre-scheduling calendar. From that screen,
click the "Do you need to change the shifts used on any days?" Click on the
first day of the fifth week, change its Day Type to the Day Type that you
created that has no shifts, then do the same for all the following days of
the schedule to change them to the same blank Day Type.
Note that when you
start the next year of resident schedules, you will need to enter a new
sample start date for the schedule (select the "What appearance do you want
for your schedule?" option from the
Customizer - Main Menu screen, then change the start date
from that screen. This is needed since your six week scheduling period is
now starting two weeks earlier than if you had continued scheduling in six
week blocks from the previous year. |
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EPSKED is reportedly
compatible with the
VirtualPC
emulation program and a variety of PC cards. Virtual PC allows you to run
many Windows based programs on the Macintosh, including EPSKED.
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I
created a schedule, then realized I had forgotten to enter "off"
information for one of our physicians. What should I do? |
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"Off"
(provider availability) information can be entered even after a
schedule has been created. To enter new off information for an
already completed schedule, click the "Show off requests" button
from the Schedule Review
screen to display the Provider Availability screen. You
can enter off requests from there. If a provider is already
scheduled for a shift that you label as off you are also offered the
option of removing the provider from the scheduled shift.
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Our
physicians sometimes split a shift. For example, instead of Dr. Smith
working 9am - 9pm we might use Dr. Smith working 9am - 3pm and Dr. Jones
working 3pm - 9pm. How can this be printed? |
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If your providers regularly split certain shifts, you should create
additional shifts and a new Day Type to accommodate the split shifts. Click
the "What are your shifts?" selection from the
Customizer
Main Menu
screen to create the shifts, then press the "Forward" button from each
screen to update all Customizer screens for the added shifts.
The key steps are:
From the "What are your shifts?" screen, create shifts named "9AM - 3PM",
and "3PM - 9PM". From the "Which days of the week are your shifts normally
scheduled?" screen, create a new Day Type titled "Split 9-9" that includes
the 9AM - 3PM and 3PM - 9PM shifts, but not the 9AM - 9PM shift. Note that
you do not need to assign the newly created Day Type for any days of the
week. From the Shift Printing screen, identify the lines on which you want
to print the names of the physicians scheduled for the new shifts. You may
also need
to update other screens for shift relations, summary categories, and
provider information as needed.
When you create a
schedule, if you know ahead of time that you want to schedule split shifts
on a day, change that day to the "Split 9-9" Day Type. (The first screen
in the Scheduler that displays the shifts that need to be scheduled is titled
Pre-scheduling calendar. From that screen, click the "Do you need to
change the shifts used on any days?" button to show the "Change shifts used
in a schedule" screen. Click the the day you want to change, then select the
"Split 9-9" Day Type.
If you need to change
the Day Types after scheduling has been completed, do so from the
Schedule Review
screen by clicking the day you want to modify, changing the display to the
"Review One Schedule Day" screen. Click on the "Change the shifts used this
day" side button. A window is displayed from which you can add and subtract
shifts from the day; remove the 9AM-9PM shift and add in the 9AM - 3PM and
3PM - 9PM shifts. |
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When I
change the Day Type used on a day after scheduling, I notice that some
shifts are marked as "off" even though the doc was available to work. What
happened? |
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[Editor Note: To change Day Types from the
Schedule Review <screen, click
the day you want to modify, changing the display to the "Review One Schedule
Day" screen. Click on the "Change the shifts used this day" side button. A
window is displayed from which you can add and subtract shifts from the
day.]
EPSKED allows you to add or
remove shifts from a day even after scheduling has been completed. If you use this
feature, it can cause unexpected effects upon the shifts your physician have
requested off unless you understand the following information.
When you first enter
a date on which a provider has requested shifts off, EPSKED internally marks
*all* shifts in the day as "Off", including all shifts not
currently being used (scheduled) by the Day Type assigned to the day.
If the provider
requested the entire day off, this is what you want. If, however, the
provider requested only certain shifts as Off in the day and you initially
clicked the day (to mark all shifts Off), then clicked the shifts the
provider was available (to toggle them back to available), EPSKED still keeps the provider Off for the undisplayed shifts that are not
currently being used. This causes no difficulties unless you later change
the shifts used in the day to shifts that includes one of the previously
undisplayed shifts, which
is then unexpectedly marked as Off. You can avoid this problem by initially
clicking only the shifts that a provider wants off. This solution can,
however, cause a new difficulty if the physician *did* want one of the
previously undisplayed shifts Off.
The Bottom Line:
After changing a Day Type, return to the Schedule Review screen, then click
the "Show off requests" button and review your providers' availability to
make sure it is what you want on the changed days.
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I'd like
to keep cumulative summaries both of schedules as they were originally
scheduled and as they were worked after all the swaps. Is there any way to
do that? The "as worked" cumulative summary is needed for pay purposes, the
"as scheduled" cumulative summary is needed to show that the original
schedule, before swaps were made, was fair. |
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For the summaries of single schedules, this is easy.
Simply name two schedule variants "as worked" and
"as scheduled", or some such names, retrieve the desired
schedule variant when needed, and print the summary of that
schedule variant. (You can save up to twenty different
variants for each schedule.)
For cumulative
summaries you must be careful to save your schedules so that
the last schedule variant saved is the "as worked" schedule,
and that the "as scheduled" variant is the penultimate
(second to the last) schedule variant that you have saved. You can check
this by starting to retrieve the schedule, then note that
these two variants are the top two variants names listed from the possible
variants you can retrieve. Your normal cumulative summary
will then retrieve the "as worked" summary. (Be careful that
you do not actually retrieve a "as scheduled" schedule
after the "as worked" schedule has been saved, or the "as
scheduled" variant will be made most recent variant, ahead
of the "as worked" schedule! If this occurs, simply retrieve
the "as worked" schedule again.)
To generate a
cumulative summary of the "as scheduled" variants, select
the Cumulative Summary option from the scheduling Main Menu
screen as usual. Note that there is a checkbox labeled
"Latest variant" below the side buttons along the left side
of the screen and that this checkbox is normally selected.
Click the "Latest variant" option to uncheck it. When you
then generate a cumulative summary, EPSKED will use the
penultimate (second to the last) schedule variant saved,
creating an "as scheduled" cumulative summary. |
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I really
appreciate having all the instant summaries of scheduled hours and
shifts when I'm working on the schedule, but when I distribute the
individual physician schedules I'd like to have the option of
not
printing the scheduled summaries on that schedule. (It causes too much
bickering.) Is there any way to keep the summary from being printed? |
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You can elect to either print *no* summary information on
the schedules or elect to print only selected summary
categories.
If you want to print *no* summary information on the
schedules, from the scheduling program click the
Options...Printer...General dropdown menu option. Uncheck
the "Print a shift and hours summary on personal schedules"
checkbox. No summary information will be printed, faxed or
emailed on any schedules
that you distribute.
If you want to print only selected summary categories, from
the scheduling program click the Summary...Categories...To
Print dropdown menu option. A "Select Summary Categories To
Print" window is displayed where you can select which
summary
statistics
you want printed
on your schedules. Note that only the first
selected categories that fit on a single line summary is
printed on Individual Schedules. The Personalized Master
schedule is not affected by the selected summary categories
and will print the total hours and total
shifts scheduled for the
provider (unless the "Print a shift and hours summary on
personal schedules" checkbox described above is not selected
as described above).
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We're
trying to create a rotating schedule that gives everybody an equal
number of all types of shifts. Can EPSKED automatically generate this
schedule for us? |
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Rotating schedules
are entered in the
Cycle Scheduling section of EPSKED. (See the Cycle Menu in the Customizer
program.) Once you have entered your rotation/cycle sequence,
EPSKED automatically generates schedules based on the cycle scheduling information
that you
provided. For an idea of how to create an equitable rotation, see the
article Simple Method of Generating Multiple
Rotating Schedule Templates, by
Robert Porter, MD, reproduced by permission from an article in the January
1997 issue of Emergency Medicine News.
EPSKED will generate schedules based on this method for groups of up to 30
physicians (requiring a 30 week cycle schedule). |
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Do you have any information
about the best way to approach emergency department scheduling in
order to minimize problems with circadian rhythms? |
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