Scheduling tip for the holidays

As the holiday season approaches, time off requests from your hospitalists are likely trickling in. We wrote an article “Six evergreen tips for holiday scheduling” in the December newsletter of Hospitalist Leadership Advisor about the best hints for this time of year. Sometimes, though, we can’t fit everything to print. Here is an extra tip that wasn’t included the upcoming issue:

Presbyterian Health Services uses AMION, developed by Spiral Software in Norwich, VT, to keep track of its hospitalist program’s schedules, said Mary Dallas, MD, medical information officer at Presbyterian Health Services in Albuquerque, NM. The password-protected online software works well to accommodate Presbyterian Health System’s shift-based hospitalist schedule. Because the system saves and tracks data year after year, Dallas can ensure that hospitalists who worked on Thanksgiving last year don’t this year—unless they want to. Dallas notes that the software is not used to pay hospitalists; it is used only to manage their schedules.