ER Scheduling

glennkunsman

I am trying to use the application to schedule residents, I have entered the block schedule, but we work x number of days based on your PGY year, and seniors work mostly the day and night shifts but I would like to create a block schedule 3 on 4 off, 4 on 3 off, etc. and there does not seem to be a good way to do this any suggestions?

admin

Hello glennkunsman,

Unfortunately there is no built-in way to automatically make a "3 on, 4 off, 4 on, 3 off" schedule.

Most EM programs use the Randomizer with "Progressive Shifts Schedule" option, and polish things up by hand if necessary. You might try using the Randomizer to get you started and fine-tuning the results by hand.

Since it looks like you already tried using the Randomizer, here are a few tips:

- Please check to make sure you have your Tallies set up correctly (make sure all the right shifts actually are in the Tally. I noticed several of your Tallies only have 3 shifts in them).

- Check that your Staffing Requirements are set up properly (for example I am noticing that you have a PGY-1 and a PGY-2 in your schedule, yet none of your shifts accept either of those.)

- Also, you may try setting "rest between night shifts and day shifts" to 3 in the Progressive Schedule Options so that you'll have 3 days off between groups of shifts.

I hope that helps. If you have follow-on questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards,

Olivier Forget
Owner and Developer
MedRez.net Scheduling Tool

WMUSOMEM

I am trying to use this program to develop a preliminary schedule using the randomizer and progressive shifts schedule that I can later fine tune. The issue is that it is placing residents on overnight shifts for 1 or 2 shifts at a time. Typically we place a resident on overnight shifts for 3 or 4 nights straight before having them reset to days, which decreases the frequency that residents are having to adjust to the night shifts. Is there a way to tell the randomizer to have residents on nights shifts for 3 or 4 consecutive nights?

Also, I am having an issue where the randomizer is scheduling residents for two shifts in the same day (i.e. 8 am - 4 pm shift and then again from 4 pm - 12am). We normally have 10 hours off between shifts and can't seem to make this work. I have adjusted to the duty hours to have 10 hours off between clinical duties but it does not seem to be applying that to the randomizer. Any advice on this? Thanks.

admin

Hi WMUSOMEM,

Thank-you for trying the MedRez.net Scheduling Tool.

With the Progressive option enabled the Randomizer tries to fit residents into a nice progressive schedules as best it can, but the number of nights that each resident does is dependent on many factors. In your case (I'm looking at the "Test Autofill Borgess Block 2" schedule) you only have one night shift and a relatively large number of residents available to fill these shifts. Therefore I am not surprised that it is only putting people on for a night or two. You might try adjust Tally Targets for your night Tally to see if you can coerce it to give more night shifts to some residents and less to others (if that makes sense in your situation).

Regarding the issue with residents taking 2 shifts in a day, please reduce the Duty-Hour rules "max duty period" to something closer to the length of the longest shift. EM residents don't normally work 24 hour shifts, so the default setting of 24 hours is not appropriate. After you change it you should no longer see this problem in newly Randomized schedules.

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Olivier Forget
Owner and Developer
MedRez.net Scheduling Tool