Meeting Resident and Staff Needs with Better Scheduling

Any healthcare scheduler knows staff scheduling is a constant flow of moving pieces. Open shifts must be filled. Nurses may call out. Still, resident care must go on. For Presbyterian SeniorCare Network, having Schedule Management meant better ongoing maintenance of the schedule, made possible by more efficient communication methods within the software.

Before, nurses were leaving sticky notes on a printed schedule to ask for shifts or give up a shift. They were stopping by their leader’s office to discuss changes, or conversely, their leader may have called nurses one by one to try and fill a shift.

Now, nurses can see their schedule on their cellphone or any computer device. They can communicate if they’d like to swap shifts or simply pick up an open shift as they see what is available. Malosh notes this as one of the biggest benefits in their process – that staff can quickly figure out what shifts are available to pick up, what they can’t pick up, and no longer have to wait for a phone call.

This enhanced communication is invaluable. The organization can now meet staff scheduling expectations and their staffing data shows it’s really working. Malosh shares, “Schedule Management eliminated all our inefficiencies in communication. In our first two weeks that we went live, we saw an increase of 12% of our own staff picking up open shifts.”

For scheduling leaders, having Schedule Management has saved each scheduler 15 hours of work for every four-week schedule they prepare.

Schedule Management empowered Presbyterian SeniorCare Network to create schedules with more ease and efficiency – in turn allowing them to better focus on their seniors’ needs. Scheduling became less about updating spreadsheets and individual phone calls, and more about arming leaders and staff with real-time information to quickly make staffing decisions.

Malosh sums up the impact as, “We set out to have the right people in the right place at the right time. That’s what we do. We serve seniors, so what we really needed to be able to do – and do without any errors or mistakes, in the quickest amount of time – was get people where they need to be.”

As valuable as scheduling software has been for Presbyterian SeniorCare Network, it’s not their first time trying a SaaSbased approach. Having been disappointed before, Malosh was careful in choosing a partner. She describes her experience with Inovalon as “tremendous,” stating, “Inovalon’s attentiveness – how they listened and really tried to understand what we were looking for and where we had pain points – was a tremendous experience. We felt like they were saying ‘We want to be a partner with you in solving your problems and helping you make improvements.’”

Since the beginning, Inovalon addressed each of Malosh’s questions and concerns, showing how the software actually works and making sure the organization understood how Schedule Management could meet their needs.

The results: a strong relationship, a powerful scheduling software, more engaged staff, and most importantly – happier residents who are now better served by a team who can focus more on their needs and less on where they’re supposed to be.