Although technology has progressed significantly over the past decade, not all sectors are able to keep up and take advantage of it. The healthcare sector is heavily dependent on and greatly benefits from advancements in technology, especially in electronic health records (EHRs), imaging technologies, and robotic-assisted surgery.
However, an integral aspect of healthcare that many facilities still fail to adopt is technology for scheduling. In many countries, nurse scheduling is still conducted manually, as seen in South Korea. In the US, most large hospitals and healthcare facilities have already transitioned to automated scheduling for surgical bookings, while smaller hospitals tend to have slower adoption rates.
In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of the main differences between automated and manual nurse scheduling, including an automated nurse staffing cost comparison with that of traditional manual scheduling systems.
Automated Nurse Staffing Cost Comparison vs Manual Scheduling
True Cost of Manual Nurse Scheduling
Although manual scheduling has its benefits, including cost-effectiveness and flexibility, it is often only effective in smaller healthcare settings. For larger facilities, the true cost of manual nurse scheduling processes is their negative impact on both efficiency levels and patient care outcomes.
Manual nurse scheduling tends to be time-consuming. Nurse managers who perform administrative-focused tasks, including nurse staff scheduling manually, often spend a large amount of their time at work doing so. This is especially true for large hospitals with thousands of nurses across various departments. Traditional nurse scheduling consists of nurse managers relying on spreadsheets, paper logs, and even shift schedules posted on walls for shift management, which can be a tedious and arduous process. Nurse managers who have to manually approve all scheduling updates — including shift changes, additions, and cancellations — will most likely not have time to perform other critical activities.
When nurse managers are bogged down with scheduling tasks, they won’t have enough time to focus on patient care responsibilities, including overseeing the implementation and adherence to patient safety and care policies and protocols.
Inefficiencies in Manual Nurse Scheduling Processes
Manual nurse scheduling inefficiencies in nursing units can lead to preventable errors from taking place in the workplace. If staff schedules aren’t kept up to date, mistakes can happen, which may result in having too many or too few employees working during specific shifts. Traditional scheduling processes can also make it difficult for nurse managers to adjust for “no-call, no-shows,” absences, and last-minute shift changes. These inefficiencies end up costing healthcare facilities more in the long run. For example, scheduling problems that lead to understaffing can prompt nurses on shift to work mandatory overtime, which can lead to overtime pay, nurse burnout, and payroll and compliance challenges.
Manual nurse scheduling can inadvertently cause nurses’ scheduling preferences or time-off requests to be overlooked or forgotten, which can cause employee dissatisfaction. Additionally, the traditional way of scheduling nurses can also pave the way for unfair scheduling practices to proliferate in the workplace, especially if nurses are not privy to how schedules are created and approved, which can demotivate and breed distrust among healthcare staff.
Savings from Automated Nurse Staffing Systems
Hospital nurse scheduling automation savings can be substantial, making it highly advantageous for healthcare facilities to adopt technology-driven scheduling solutions. Community Health, a California-based healthcare organization, managed to save a staggering $2.8 million in labor costs by adopting automated scheduling tools into its systems.
With this move, Community Health was able to gain visibility over critical scheduling-related issues, such as missed breaks, overtime rates, and underutilized full-time employees and agency staff members. The organization was also able to reduce the number of scheduling errors and allowed them to fill scheduling gaps quickly.
Hospitals that choose to implement automated scheduling tools can experience similar significant benefits, such as reduced administrative workload for nurse managers, fewer scheduling errors, and improved staff satisfaction.
