All Entries Tagged With: "Scheduling"
Are hospitalists shooting themselves in the foot with the seven-day block schedule?
In a recent article that appeared in the July issue of Today’s Hospitalist, I was struck by a quote from David Friar, MD, a hospitalist in Northwest Michigan: “This isn’t a sprint, and seven-on/seven-off is one of the mistakes that I think our field has made. We burn ourselves out, then we rush home to spend seven days driving our spouses crazy.” He adds that if hospitalists worked more days per year, they could see fewer patients in a day without sacrificing productivity and experience better work-life balance.
I know I wouldn’t enjoy that schedule. How about you–is the seven-day block schedule a solution or a nightmare?
Q&A: Recruitment and scheduling
Q: When new hospitalist hires start working, should they have the option to pick their own schedule, or should we assign a schedule for them from the get-go?
While gearing up for a Webcast about recruitment and retention, HCPro talked to Kirk Mathews of Inpatient Management, Inc. and Carole Montgomery, MD of Butterworth Hospital, Grand Rapids, MI, about their recruitment methods and how they respond to what is likely the number one question candidates typically ask, “What will my schedule be like?” [more]
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.
