What is Nurse scheduling?

Hospital systems need to schedule nurses for various departments such as ER, OR, and Inpatient. Each of these departments has slightly different methodologies in the way nurses are selected and assigned for duties. However, from an overall point of view, nurse scheduling for these areas does follow a lot of patterns and similarities.

How does nurse scheduling get set up?

The first step in nurse scheduling is a prediction of nurse requirements. Let us consider each of the departments.

In ER, nurse scheduling is largely dependent on ER census prediction. Several states have recommended nurse-to-patient ratios so that adequate care can be provided. ER census predictions can be performed using forecasting tools and using various attributes such as the day of the week, month, season, flu patterns, holiday patterns, and other such criteria. Usually, a large amount of past data is analyzed to detect the patterns and then used to forecast the census in the near term.

In, OR, the nurse scheduling is based on the prediction of the requirements for OR procedures and associated tasks. OR block schedules determine the general OR requirements during and after prime time. However, OR blocks are not completely utilized so prediction of usage patterns is needed on top of the base schedule to determine the OR utilization. Based on this, nurse requirements can be predicted in the near term.

Inpatient census is typically a combination of the ER and OR load and scheduled admission. For example, typically, 30% of ER patients could end up getting admitted. So, ER census gives a good inkling of the demand for nurses on the inpatient side.

What happens currently?

Some of the nurses are on the hospital staff and some nurses are on contract and could be traveling nurses. Determining the nurse requirements and coordinating the hiring and confirmation of nurses is a largely manual process unless specific nurse management systems that deal with end-to-end nurse schedule management systems have been set up. Even if the nurse HR systems can handle nurses clocking in and out, they may still have gaps in the way nurses need to be contacted and hired for contract and peak-in jobs. 

What is the problem with a manual system?

Time consumed

Manual configuration of the nurse schedules and coordinating nurse signups are messy processes that involve a lot of Email and SMS messages.

Hospital managers out of the loop

Since nurse hiring for contract jobs is a manual process, it is not easy for hospital departmental managers to stay in the loop. There may be availability and surplus on the ER side but the OR managers would not know of the surplus unless they pick up the phone and talk to other departments.

Frustrating for nurses

Answering Emails and SMS messages and waiting for replies can be frustrating for the nurses as well.