How to Create Better Physician Schedules: Integrating Technology and Data

For physicians and other caregivers, every second counts. There are more patients than ever before in the healthcare system. Hospitals increasingly face overcrowding, and doctors are asked to do more with less. Healthcare providers don’t have enough hours in the day to provide the care patients deserve, let alone devote themselves to physician scheduling. 

The average doctor would need a staggering 27 hours daily to provide effective care for all their patients. A new survey by Medscape News also indicates that working too many hours is leading to caregiver burnout – with fifty-seven percent of physicians working 71 or more hours weekly and about half spending 60-70 hours on the job. Forty-four percent of respondents say they’ve experienced severe burnout due to these long hours.  

With the odds not in their favor, how can doctors turn the tide and better serve patients? Part of the solution is better scheduling.

 

See how much time you can save with TigerConnect Physician Scheduling Create your physician schedules up to 70% faster or get back 286 hours annually. View Savings

 

Exploring Automation in Physician Scheduling

For years, physicians have relied on manual scheduling. Doctors typically manually manage their schedules with paper, sticky notes, or Excel spreadsheets, whether it’s appointments, consult meetings or treatment. Unfortunately, this results in a tremendous amount of wasted time. Most physicians spend more than two-thirds of their time doing paperwork, including scheduling. What’s concerning is physicians only spend 27 percent of their days seeing patients. 

But the rise in digital communications and records has proven there can be a better way. With most patient records online, it’s becoming easier and faster for physicians to harness this data electronically. Processes that were once paper-based are now more efficiently and effectively moved into the digital domain – and this includes physician scheduling.  

Say Goodbye to Paper – Enter Automation

Eliminating manual scheduling can not only save time, but also reduce staff burnout, and increase productivity. Harnessing digital information, it’s now possible to create and manage all pieces of a physician’s schedule – from time-off requests and patient appointments to consults and treatment. Not only does automation eliminate bottlenecks, but it also makes it possible to pinpoint just where current communication breakdowns exist.  

Tools like TigerConnect Physician Scheduling can make automated scheduling possible – empowering physicians to create a dependable schedule in minutes. The scheduling engine integrates fully with the TigerConnect Clinical Collaboration solution for a single, easy-to-use platform to schedule and automate work and on-call assignments. This provides staff with an intuitive, rules-based option for quickly scheduling and creating assignments. TigerConnect Physician Scheduling algorithms and workflows mean less work for physicians and administrative teams and more equitable time distribution. 

The scheduling solution provides several core functions: 

• Automated Scheduling: Enabling physicians to save time by generating accurate and fair schedules in minutes via an Auto Scheduler. 

• Time Off/Swaps: Makes it simple to manage vacation and time-off requests and approvals. 

• Patient Reschedules: Allows providers to automatically block, freeze and cancel patient appointments. 

• Custom/Merged Views: Users can merge scheduling views in a customized daily, weekly, or monthly basis – either by individual or department. 

When integrated with the holistic TigerConnect Clinical Collaboration platform, physicians can securely and instantly reach the right provider by individual or role (e.g., Trauma Surgeon). Scheduling changes can be communicated instantly, while time-off and future shift assignments are seen in one integrated platform. 

Right On Time – The Way Forward with Automated Scheduling

Patient care is often a race against the clock, and the flood of new patients is causing valuable physician time to be stretched even further. But by tapping into the power of automation, physicians can effectively streamline workloads and ease scheduling. By automating the scheduling process, physicians can use time more effectively and treat patients better.

Interested in seeing how TigerConnect can ease your physician scheduling headaches? See how much time you can save with our time-savings calculator!

Tags: Automated physician scheduling, physician schedules, healthcare data, Healthcare Automation, On-Call Schedules, Healthcare Technology