Method and system for optimizing employee scheduling in a patient care environment
First Claim
1. A method of scheduling a plurality of employees in a health care environment, wherein at least two patients receive treatment during a predetermined time period, said scheduling method comprising:
- for each patient, evaluating patient care requirements, wherein the patient care requirements correspond to actual employee time requirements necessary to satisfy the patient care requirements;
in response to the patient care requirement evaluation, adjusting scheduling time of at least one patient to distribute the corresponding employee time requirements throughout a predetermined time period;
automatically scheduling employees in shifts in response to the distributed employee time requirements, wherein automatically scheduling employees comprises;
(i) determining in a computer system the employees'"'"' patient care capability over intervals of their shift, wherein at least one employee is not capable of performing direct patient care duties for an entire shift;
(ii) counting employees at a fractional number based at least upon the employees'"'"' training and a predetermined patient care capability resulting in scheduling employees in non-whole number increments; and
(iii) rounding up a total amount of employees needed when a determination by a scheduling module results in a fractional number of employees needed to address the needs of the at least two patients; and
displaying employee shift information in relation to time to provide a visual indication of scheduled employee information in relation to scheduled patient information.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for managing a health clinic, and in particular to managing/scheduling employees to work in the clinic. The system and method relates to a computer program for computing the needs of patients, determining adequate staffing requirements and displays these needs and requirements in connection with actual scheduling values. Thus, the system provides a tool for quickly determining whether the clinic is overstaffed or understaffed, for the entire day based on patient needs, both direct and indirect patient care needs. The system and method may further use facility limitation information to provide overall efficiency information.
-
Citations
35 Claims
-
1. A method of scheduling a plurality of employees in a health care environment, wherein at least two patients receive treatment during a predetermined time period, said scheduling method comprising:
-
for each patient, evaluating patient care requirements, wherein the patient care requirements correspond to actual employee time requirements necessary to satisfy the patient care requirements; in response to the patient care requirement evaluation, adjusting scheduling time of at least one patient to distribute the corresponding employee time requirements throughout a predetermined time period; automatically scheduling employees in shifts in response to the distributed employee time requirements, wherein automatically scheduling employees comprises; (i) determining in a computer system the employees'"'"' patient care capability over intervals of their shift, wherein at least one employee is not capable of performing direct patient care duties for an entire shift; (ii) counting employees at a fractional number based at least upon the employees'"'"' training and a predetermined patient care capability resulting in scheduling employees in non-whole number increments; and (iii) rounding up a total amount of employees needed when a determination by a scheduling module results in a fractional number of employees needed to address the needs of the at least two patients; and displaying employee shift information in relation to time to provide a visual indication of scheduled employee information in relation to scheduled patient information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A method of scheduling employees in a health care environment comprising:
-
compiling a plurality of patient profiles, each patient profile associated with a different patient, and wherein each patient profile comprises information related to the direct patient care needs of the associated patient; compiling a plurality of employee profiles, each employee profile associated with a different employee and wherein each employee profile comprises information related to the patient care capability of the associated employee; calculating scheduling efficiency information relating to a generated schedule of patients and employees based on the patient profiles and employee profiles; scheduling employees in shifts according to distributed employee time requirements and automatically adjusting the schedule to generate a more efficient schedules, wherein scheduling comprises; (i) determining in a computer system the employees'"'"' patient care capability over intervals of their shift, wherein at least one employee is not capable of performing direct patient care duties for an entire shift; (ii) counting employees at a fractional number based at least upon the employees'"'"' training and a predetermined patient care capability resulting in scheduling employees in non-whole number increments; and (iii) rounding up a total amount of employees needed when a determination by a scheduling module results in a fractional number of employees needed to address the needs of the plurality of patients; and displaying employee shift information in relation to time to provide a visual indication of scheduled employee information in relation to scheduled patient information. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24)
-
-
25. A system for scheduling employees in a health care environment comprising:
-
a memory store for storing patient information related to the needs of a plurality of patients, resource information and employee information related to patient care capability of a plurality of patients; a scheduling module that schedules patients and employees according to patient needs and schedules employees in shifts according to distributed employee time requirements, wherein scheduling comprises; (i) determining the employees'"'"' patient care capability over intervals of their shift, wherein at least one employee is not capable of performing direct patient care duties for an entire shift; (ii) counting employees at a fractional number based at least upon the employees'"'"' training and a predetermined patient care capability resulting in scheduling employees in non-whole number increments; and (iii) rounding up a total amount of employees needed when a determination by the scheduling module results in a fractional number of employees needed to address the needs of the plurality of patients; an optimization module for adjusting a schedule to optimize efficiency, wherein adjusting the schedule comprises adjusting the scheduled patient information and automatically adjusting the scheduled employee information to reflect the change; and a display unit for displaying the scheduled patient information in combination with scheduled employee information, the display providing efficiency information. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A graphical user interface for a computer system, the graphical user interface having a display module for displaying information;
- said graphical user interface comprising;
a patient schedule portion, the patient schedule portion logically divided into intervals and displaying patient schedule information related to the intervals; an employee schedule portion logically divided into intervals, wherein the employee schedule portion is determined by; (i) an employees'"'"' patient care capability over the intervals, wherein at least one employee is not capable of performing direct patient care duties for an entire shift; (ii) counting employees at a fractional number based at least upon the employees'"'"' training and a predetermined patient care capability resulting in scheduling employees in non-whole number increments; (iii) rounding up a total amount of employees needed when a determination by a scheduling module results in a fractional number of employees needed to address the needs of a plurality of patients, and wherein the intervals for the patient schedule portion correspond to the intervals for the employee information portion; and a calculation display area for displaying calculated values within each interval, the calculated values relating to patient care requirements, the display area graphically depicting peaks related in relative increases in patient requirements for each interval such that the calculation display area provides efficiency information. - View Dependent Claims (35)
- said graphical user interface comprising;
Specification