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Hospitals are under more pressure than ever to pinch pennies without sacrificing patient care. While there are some measures that are simple to make (energy efficient lighting, reducing food waste, adopting electronic rather than printed medical journal subscriptions, and reviewing contracts to look for bigger savings elsewhere), others are not always as obvious. One way hospitals can save big is with the addition of scheduling software. These are just a few of the reasons why.
Reduces Overtime Hours
Overtime is expensive. Even overtime hours for lower paying staff members can add up quickly. When you’re considering the overtime hours for physicians, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners, and other highly skilled and specialized medical professionals, eliminating overtime pay nets a significant cost reduction for most hospital facilities.
Scheduling software keeps a running tab of hours worked during an overtime period for each employee and avoids scheduling employees in a manner that would lead to some employees working too many hours while others work too few. This improves balance in the scheduling process, particularly when shift scheduling is involved, and helps hospitals avoid stiff penalties in the form of overtime payments to medical and support staff.
Eliminates Short Staffing
Short staffing often ends up in top-dollar last-minute replacements. You simply cannot function as a hospital without adequate, qualified staff. Scheduling hospital staff is no small task, and emergency medicine scheduling can be an even more challenging task. There are numerous variables, shift preferences, overtime concerns, union requirements, and even accreditation issues to factor into the staffing equation.
A common consequence is that shifts are understaffed as a result of human error, oversight, or eyes crossing from all the hours, shifts, and times to include. The things one person may have difficulty doing over the course of several days, the right software program can accomplish with a few keystrokes.
It’s almost maddening how effective computer software is when it comes to complex calculations. The secret to success, in this instance, though, is to let the software do the heavy lifting for you to ensure adequate shift coverage and eliminate last-minute fixes that are disruptive and costly.
Minimizes Administrative Costs
How many hours each work week are devoted to tasks related to the schedule? The problem with manual shift schedules is that everything must be done by hand. Every little change, adjustment, or fine-tuning action takes time out of someone’s work day in order to administer.
Every time someone calls in to ask about a schedule, report a physician scheduling conflict, request vacation days, and more, someone has to stop what he or she is doing in order to see to the scheduling task at hand. Then there’s a little bit of lag time getting back into the task that person was originally devoted to. If nothing else, it’s a highly disruptive process.
Scheduling software handles all these things, and more, electronically, so that administrative costs are not tied up on this particular task that does not help to boost the revenue of your hospital.
A few key modifications, like switching to hospital scheduling software can make a huge difference to your bottom line while creating a workplace that operates with excellent efficiency.
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