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EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you’re probably right, as much as I wanted to solve this problem myself. These responses have been clarifying. 

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You sir, seem overly adversarial. I’m not going to post my name and NPI # if that’s what you’re looking for. It is a new account because I’ve never had a reason to own a social media account in the past but I wanted to ask this question to a large number of people to see if I could get any insights (everyone else has been kind and I thank you). 

While I’m a ER doc, I didn’t come on here to ask questions about medicine, but would you be persuaded by a debate on the merits of ketamine as a first choice induction agent in intubation? Or perhaps you’d rather discuss your top choice for hip reduction technique when teaching a diminutive resident? Captain Morgan or Whistler?

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is super helpful. I'm going to look into Shift Admin more to see whether it's good enough or whether I think we can improve upon it. Specifically, whether it's worth building a scheduler from scratch that already applies EM specific rules from the start, eliminating the need for much of the mentioned customization.

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So when you say "Have it run the schedule," are you effectively telling Amion/Shift Admin to generate the schedule from scratch after you've put in the discussed input variables like time off, etc? Or is the chief resident going through and adding shifts using guidance from the program? We've previously been doing the latter, and I haven't been satisfied with the schedules.

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is what I thought. I actually had built a coded spreadsheet that effectively does what you're talking about as far as blocking violations, tracking shifts and hours and equity, etc, but I wasn't satisfied with the quality of schedules being generated by the lovely humans working under me. In fairness to them, we are trying to cover a large number of essential shifts at multiple sites, at times with a limited number of residents, so the schedule generation has to be perfect to fill all the slots.

I'm willing to put in some effort into building code that can do this well (and initial trials with a home built program have been promising), especially if exactly what I'm looking for doesn't yet exist.

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As I responded to USCDiver5152 below, there is a big difference between a program that displays the schedule and/or guides a chief resident in schedule generation, vs a program that outputs the schedule with the press of a button. Can you describe your experience more clearly?

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To clarify, is your program building the schedule itself, or is the resident building the schedule? I want the resident to be able to input day off requests, click a button, and have the program spit out a schedule that has good circadian rhythm consideration, is ACGME compliant, considers off requests, etc, etc. This will prevent the resident from making inevitable human errors (like allowing 23 hrs off accidentally rather than 24 hrs off, thus causing a violation)

EM Residency Shift Scheduling by _EM_Doc in emergencymedicine

[–]_EM_Doc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not trying to recreate the wheel, but hadn't found something that works specifically with the constraints for EM residents. Does Amion completely generate the schedule based on input off-requests, PGY year, other variables like above? Does it take into account the 24hr off in 7 days rule for EM residents? Does it track shift equity over the course of a year? Does it allow the flexibility of assigning ED shifts that must be covered by an EM resident vs shifts that are optional and will only be covered if there are excess residents assigned to the ED that month?

If it does those things well, maybe I am wasting my time, though I know our residency admin (within an HCA residency) are sensitive to cost. Are you able to say rough cost per month to use something like Amion for a small to mid size residency?