Case Study
How Alomere Health Navigates Scheduling Complexity with Ease
With TigerConnect Physician Scheduling, Alomere Health was able to eliminate the duplication and manual processing of on-call information.
Overview
Alomere Health, an integration of Alexandria Clinic and Douglas County Hospital, is one of Minnesota’s largest integrated community healthcare networks. In partnership with Heartland Orthopedic Specialists and several other medical clinics, the network leverages 10 specialty care groups to serve a variety of patients with diverse needs throughout rural, west-central Minnesota.
With TigerConnect Physician Scheduling, Alomere Health was able to eliminate the duplication and manual processing of on-call information. Physician Scheduling’s user-friendly system enables schedulers to create daily on-call rosters and integrate schedules with rule-based scheduling to create balance for providers.
The Challenge
When the clinic integrated with the hospital, however, scheduling became much more complex. In total, there were approximately 240 providers and staff to coordinate and schedule. The hospital system was primarily paper-based and required sending notes back and forth among departments to determine schedules, notify each other of changes, and know who was in which buildings at which time. Problems also arose when someone needed to change their call schedule, which happened frequently.
“Our switchboard department would spend hours putting together the schedule manually. Then they sent it electronically to each station and printed out a copy for each one. There was a lot of room for error, such as typing in the wrong phone number, forgetting to print a copy for a station, or entering the wrong provider.”
— Tommie Plaster, Patient Access Supervisor at Alomere Health.
The Solution
After looking at a variety of options, Alexandria Clinic and Douglas County Hospital decided to expand the use of TigerConnect Physician Scheduling. This allowed both the clinic and the hospital to permanently eliminate the duplication and manual processing of on-call information. Moreover, TigerConnect’s user-friendly interface enabled schedulers to create daily on-call rosters and integrate schedules among groups in a fraction of the time that was required in the past.
“We knew TigerConnect Physician Scheduling could continue to help us now that we were integrated with the hospital,” said Miller. “It gave us the best variety and functionality for what we needed.”
The Results
Throughout implementation, Miller and Plaster worked closely with TigerConnect and their respective colleagues to ensure call needs were met. TigerConnect worked with the hospital team on specialty views. For instance, the ER doctors didn’t want to see everyone’s schedule, so they created views for certain departments and edited the order of the schedules.
The ability to take disparate schedules and aggregate them in one central location has delivered huge benefits to the clinic and hospital. The amount of time dedicated to scheduling has plummeted, freeing up individuals to attend to other needs and focus on what matters more: providing quality patient care.
“We were able to take scheduling to a whole new level. At the clinic, we use it for providers on call and for tracking who’s physically in the building. Now we know who’s here, who’s off, who’s here for half of a day, basically anything we need to know about the provider’s schedule.”
— Pam Miller, Director of Operations, Alomere Health
