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Shift work has been around since the dawn of civilization. About 3000 years ago, for example, a rotating labor force built Egypt’s Great Pyramid. About 2500 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote extensively about scheduling military personnel in his book, “The Art of War.” More recently, entrepreneurs building the transcontinental railroad needed a smart scheduling system to coordinate tens of thousands of workers across six US states.
Those scheduling these massive projects used physical mediums, such as pencil and paper, to create work schedules and track employee hours. While sufficient, these older scheduling systems were difficult to create and even harder to amend to accommodate vacations, sick leave, and shift swapping.
Punch cards were the earliest forms of automated scheduling systems. In 1725, Basile Bouchon punched holes in paper tape to invent the world’s first automated loom, which could weave complex patterns without the need for human intervention. IBM developed punch card technology for scheduling and other business purposes, even after expanding into computer technologies in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, magnetic tape became a popular way to manage information, although punch cards remained the go-to technology for data management well into the 1980s, when minicomputers and the internet made them obsolete. The rise of faster internet systems, such as 3G networks, in the 2010s made it possible for employees to schedule, manage, and communicate with their workers in new and exciting ways. These new streamlined scheduling systems allowed managers to tailor work schedules to meet their workers’ needs, and these personalized systems helped reduce scheduling gaps and conflicting shifts.
Employee Scheduling Software
While these older systems were adequate for filling empty shifts, they weren’t perfect, and their imperfections could have serious consequences, which would be disastrous for medical scheduling. Aside from being difficult to use, the older scheduling systems were vulnerable to:
• Data security breaches, which left patient data susceptible to theft
• Decentralization that spreads patient history across several databases
• Unnecessary complexity, which often required users to undergo extensive training
• Limited capacity
• Frequent malfunctions in which the slightest glitch could halt operations for hours
• Rigidity that had no provisions for emergency medical scheduling or appointment cancellations
Unfortunately, many healthcare systems rely on these antiquated technologies for physician scheduling, emergency medical scheduling, and other types of shift scheduling instead of upgrading their employee scheduling system.
Today’s employee scheduling is more sophisticated and effective than ever before, thanks in large part to employee scheduling software from ByteBloc. Founded in 1989, ByteBloc is one of the originals when it comes to shift scheduling. While we started out offering emergency medicine scheduling, ByteBloc now offers the shift scheduling software that keeps doctors of all specialties happy. Our software has advanced features, such as multi-location schedules, highly customizable summary statistics, customizable print layouts, flexible schedules with a variety of day types, and more. For more information on the most advanced physician scheduling systems available today, connect with ByteBloc.
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