Why cloud-based rostering is the way of the future

We demonstrated to a large hospital recently that uses a competing doctor rostering software, and were stumped in trying to answer a question about how to link various parts of the hospital together in a consolidated view.It was not that we did not know the answer. But it took a while to understand the question. In their system the various departments are managed separately, using separate databases. It is only when the rosters are published to the web that each department is linked to the other, and only then can any conflicts or interdependencies be identified. Which means that there is no ability to consider these issues as the rosters are created.

Cloud-based architecture

HosPortal's multi-tenant architecture provides for many advantages, and even some advantages over other cloud-based software providers:

• All data (regarding rosters, staff, rules, etc.) is kept in the one place. We then managed very detailed access controls to determine who can see and administer what.
• Visibility and administration can be finely controlled. We have no concept of having to define people as administrators. Users have default access rights, but can be given additional or reduced authorities at a micro level.
• Users can see across all their relevant hospitals with the one login. Doctors love that, with one login, they can see all their allocations and on-call across all their hospitals, regardless of the number of public and private hospitals they work at.

Roster and scheduling examples at work

We have a range of examples that demonstrate the power of this approach:

• A nurse can be given admin rights over just the email and SMS function
• A General Surgery Fellow could be given admin rights over the General Surgery trainee roster.
• An Emergency Department Consultant can be given permission to see the anaesthetic First On-call roster but not the Endoscopy roster.
• A general surgeon can be put on the emergency endoscopy on-call roster at the click of a few buttons.
• A person administering the surgical allocations can see the anaesthetic allocations being updated in real time, even if they cannot administer the anaesthetists.
• And we have even, on a specific request, managed to staff a single doctor across two hospitals. The doctor in question could suddenly see into the relevant shifts of both hospitals, without affecting anyone else.

(Image of cumulus cloud formation courtesy of UK Met Office)