Scheduling Software

Administrator to create one data chunk per doctor with this data:
In general this info will only be entered once or changed infrequently
Name of doctor
Date of hire
Full time or moonlighter
Oakland shifts yes or no
Richmond shifts yes or no
Teaching attending yes or no

If full time add:

works 10/10, 9/10, 8/10, 7/10 or 6/10 time ***
CCT yes or no
call center yes or no
EPRP yes or no
Fixed schedule yes or no

“Approved vacation/time off” entry mechanism by administrator for each doctor--this may
be entered several times a year for each doctor. It could be done on a separate page
but an easy way to add multiple “days off” would be good..

Administrator to create one data chunk per day with this data:
Shifts to fill at Oakland/Richmond (including CCT and call shifts)--should be entered
once and copied to each day with a mechanism to change it either for one specific date
or for all future days. Amount of “mandatory” time off after shift (different for day vs night
shifts) should be indicated once by administrator and automatically be taken into
account). Some shifts should be labeled as “night shifts” and CCT and “call” shifts will
have some unique features.
Call center and EPRP shifts to fill (I’ll need to find out how much this changes from day
to day--perhaps it can be entered once and copied to each day or copied to a fixed
pattern--will need some basic data of types of Call Center and EPRP shifts available so
docs can rank them--see below)
Major or Minor Holiday yes or no (default no)
Conference day yes or no (should autofill as yes on each second Wednesday of the
month and no otherwise)
Any additional “training” or special shifts (I’m not sure how to do this as they need to
show up on the schedule but will be assigned to the specific doctor ahead of time--
perhaps there are other occasions when a doc will be assigned to a certain shift, for
instance for administrative reasons or docs with fixed schedules--see doctor pages)

Computer to calculate number of hours to work /month for a 10/10 doc=#weekdays in

month-#holidays that month (1 or 0) x 8 hrs see * below

Each doctor to complete this data once or yearly (but allow changes at intervals):
Enter fixed schedule (only available to docs where administrator has checked fixed
schedule-yes) I will need to find out details so we can see a good way to enter this.
Perhaps it is a two week cycle of regularly scheduled shifts for a few of the older docs.

Ranking of preferred shifts

List displayed of all types of shifts each doc is eligible to work and doc ranks them as
favorite to least favorite (will change if departmental schedule changes--auto-import list
from list done by administrator with EPRP and basic types of call center shifts listed as
well (admin will need to enter those somehow)
Indicate if doc would rather work more weekends and fewer nights or fewer nights and
more weekends or balanced.
Indicate if doc prefers shifts more bunched together or spread apart

Maximum hours/week willing to work

Minimum turn around after night shifts (if longer than departmental minimum)
Minimum turn around after other shifts (if longer than departmental minimum)
Maximum call center hours/day and hours/month or if long call center shifts preferred if
call center doc

Yearly for fulltimers:

(there will be deadlines for entering this, at least if time off to be guaranteed):
minor holiday preferences (rank most to least preferred off)
major holiday preferences (rank most to least preferred off)
Summer vacation requests (2 wks/year between approx memorial day and labor day)

Yearly for pool docs:

minor holidays offered to work; major holidays offered to work

Each doc to complete this monthly, about 2 months in advance of month to be

scheduled:
For full time docs:
Outside the ED work (Peds, Palliative Care, ICU, administrative or meeting hours
scheduled which need to be blocked off)

ED hours desired (display figure calculated as * above x docs’ schedule (see *** above)
-hours of outside work (either calculate above or perhaps easier to just ask # outside
hours to subtract) - vacation or leave time. This could be asked as min and max.

Requests for time off and urgency of requests (could be 1 or 2 hours or full days)
urgent=appointments and commitments then preferred time off like desired but not
already preapproved vacation, etc.. Some way to enter this quickly would be great.

For moonlighters:
minimum and maximum hours desired
dates available

Computer Geek to make algorithms:

1. Cover all shifts
2. All mandatory time off (other shifts, guaranteed vacation/leave) honored
3. Moonlighters always with full timers
4.Correct # hours to work for each doctor (as calculated for full timers and desired by
part timers)--including leave time/work time
5. Not all inexperienced docs working together I’ll have to figure out interval between
date of hire and date to call a doc experienced.
6. Other time off honored (appts/commitments)
7. Fairness (even distribution of days, nights, swings, CCT, call center, weekends, call
shifts etc)
8. Doc preferences--all the different stuff entered by each doc as above
9. Honor fixed schedules
10. Preferred time off honored (as much as possible)
11. Respect circadian rhythms/shift work protocols (I will look into this)

Need to figure out:

vacation guarantee rules
number of weeks allowed to request off/year. Should this vary by seniority and/or
number of leave weeks stored up? To what extent should this be on a first-come, first-
served basis or if all docs should be asked to make requests per month/quarter a certain
amount of time ahead....??

Computer Geek to think about:

Emergency rescheduling for sick leave cases (one day vs. long term) This will perhaps
need different algorithms (least # of changes required) and data reentry (docs who have
new times to block out for plans made after schedule was published.)