Introduction
We’ve dedicated nearly 12 years now to crafting software solutions in healthcare designed to streamline operations for providers, clinical staff, and admin staff, all while enhancing the patient experience and, ultimately, the quality of healthcare provided. We have sen time and again that scheduling is a crucial cog in this intricate machine. It’s a task complicated by a host of factors: patient availability, payor pre-authorizations for different types of care, care location, provider availability and often the availability of multiple providers simultaneously, and the resources needed to provide the care. Each of these elements plays a vital role in the scheduling puzzle, and we’ve spent years developing solutions that cover these use cases.
The Challenges of Scheduling in Healthcare
Scheduling in healthcare is a multifaceted challenge that involves aligning the availability of patients, providers, and resources. At the most basic level, scheduling involves matching the availability of the patient and the provider. However, this task becomes increasingly complex due to several factors. Here are just a few that add significant challenges that you’ll need to consider:
Insurance Authorizations: Often, insurance authorizations are required in advance of the care. This adds an additional layer of complexity as the scheduling must align with the authorizations provided by the insurance companies. For example, a patient may be authorized for a specific type of treatment within a certain time frame, and the scheduling must accommodate this constraint.
Multiple Providers: Certain types of care, such as surgeries, require the involvement of multiple providers. For example, surgeons need anesthesiologists to perform surgery. This requires aligning the schedules of multiple providers, each with their own availability and constraints. This can be particularly challenging in cases where there is a shortage of specialized providers. For instance, by 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicts that there will be a nationwide shortage of 90,000 physicians. This shortage exacerbates the scheduling challenges faced by healthcare providers.
Shared Resources: Resources such as rooms and equipment are commonly shared. This requires distributing these resources based on prioritization frameworks, which adds another layer of complexity to the scheduling process. For example, an MRI machine may be a shared resource, and the scheduling must accommodate the needs of all parties while prioritizing urgent cases.
The impact of these challenges on patients can be significant. For example, a patient who needs surgery may have to wait weeks before they can receive the surgery based on provider schedule availability. This delay in care can have adverse effects on the patient’s physical and mental health and well-being.
Other challenges often faced by healthcare providers in scheduling include:
Emergency Situations: Emergencies can arise unexpectedly, requiring immediate attention and potentially disrupting pre-existing schedules. This requires a flexible and adaptive scheduling system that can accommodate emergencies while minimizing the impact on other scheduled care.
Legal and Regulatory Requirements: There are often legal and regulatory requirements that must be adhered to, such as maximum working hours for staff and minimum staffing levels for certain types of care. These requirements must be incorporated into the scheduling process.
Our Approach to Tackling Complex Scheduling
At Sidebench, our approach to tackling complex scheduling in healthcare is methodical, strategic, and tailored to the specific needs of each provider. Here are the key steps in our process:
Discovery: The first step in our process is discovery. This involves mapping the existing tools and workflows used by the provider. We conduct a thorough analysis to understand the current state of the provider’s scheduling system, identify significant bottlenecks, and determine areas where improvements can be made.
Strategic Approach: Next, we define a strategic approach to address the parts of the workflows and tools that need the most improvement. This involves prioritizing the efforts so that we can tackle smaller, incremental pieces and iterate as we move forward. This approach avoids the pitfalls of “big bang” solutions that take many months or years to deploy and allows for more agile development and implementation.
Roadmap Definition: Based on our strategic approach, we define a clear roadmap for our development efforts. This roadmap prioritizes the efforts based on the impact they will have on the provider’s operations and the quality of care provided to patients.
Business Case Definition: For each iteration in our roadmap, we define a clear business case. This involves outlining how the improvements will help drive the provider’s revenue goals and improve care quality simultaneously. Often, there is a capacity utilization problem where providers have resources that are being underutilized due to poor scheduling workflows or lack of information. By leveraging these resources more effectively, the business case for investing in improvements becomes clear.
Leveraging Existing Solutions: Whenever possible, we look to leverage existing solutions. Often, out-of-the-box scheduling solutions like the one provided by Salesforce’s Health Cloud fall short of addressing the complexities faced by healthcare providers. However, these solutions can be leveraged as a baseline technology that we can build on top of for each provider’s specific needs.
Consideration of the Patient Lifecycle: Throughout the entire process, we ensure that the entire patient lifecycle is considered. Care is a continuum, and there are often follow-up appointments or tele-health appointments that need to be met to ensure adequate care. We work this into the design of the scheduling system to ensure that the entire patient lifecycle is considered.
By taking this approach, we are able to develop custom scheduling solutions that are flexible and adaptable to accommodate the varying needs and preferences of both staff and patients. Additionally, we ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements by incorporating them into the design of the scheduling system.
Case Study
One of the healthcare providers we had the privilege of working with is Cortica, a provider of comprehensive care for children with autism and other conditions. Here is a case study how we helped.
Cortica — Comprehensive Autism+ Care for Children
https://health.sidebench.com/provider-cortica
Challenges Faced:
Cortica faced several challenges related to scheduling. They provide comprehensive autism care for children, which involves coordinating care across multiple disciplines and providers. This required a complex scheduling system that could accommodate the needs of patients, providers, and staff. Additionally, Cortica needed a system that could handle the scheduling of both in-person and telehealth appointments.
Our Approach:
Our approach involved developing a custom scheduling solution that addressed Cortica’s specific challenges. We started with a thorough analysis of their needs and challenges, and then designed a customized solution that accommodated the varying needs and preferences of both staff and patients. The solution included features such as multi-disciplinary scheduling, tele-health integration, and a user-friendly interface for both staff and patients.
Results:
The custom scheduling solution we developed for Cortica resulted in increased efficiency and improved patient experience. It allowed for seamless coordination of care across multiple disciplines and providers, and accommodated both in-person and tele-health appointments. Additionally, the user-friendly interface made it easy for staff and patients to use the system, which further improved the overall experience.
Testimonial:
“We have been extremely pleased with the custom scheduling solution developed by Sidebench. It has greatly improved our efficiency and the experience of our patients, allowing us to reduce our waitlist time from 6 months down to 1 month and helped us scale from 1 location to 12 across the country in just a single year. They developed a scheduling tool that integrated with Office 365 and Outlook, an electronic medical records system that most of our medical providers record their clinical documentation on, and an autism-specific care management system that the majority of our therapists do their clinical documentation relating to their patients. They’ve also re-platformed our website.” — Ben Nathan, CTO, Cortica
In closing
Scheduling in healthcare is a complex task that involves aligning the availability of patients, providers, and resources. It is influenced by a myriad of factors, including insurance authorizations, the involvement of multiple providers, shared resources, and the entire patient lifecycle. At Sidebench, we have developed a methodical and strategic approach to tackling these challenges. Our approach involves a thorough discovery process, defining a strategic approach and roadmap, leveraging existing solutions, and considering the entire patient lifecycle. We have successfully implemented custom scheduling solutions for healthcare providers like Cortica, resulting in increased efficiency, improved patient experience, and scalability.
If you are a healthcare provider facing challenges related to scheduling, we invite you to get in touch with us. Our team of experienced professionals is ready to work with you to develop a custom scheduling solution that addresses your unique challenges and helps you achieve your goals.
