News
Powertec adds automatic rostering feature to Optimize
6 April 2009
Powertec Systems & Consultancy Ltd has released new features for its
NHS rostering system Optimize that provide the capability to produce
rosters automatically at the touch of a button. This enables production
of efficient and cost-effective rosters with minimal manual
intervention.
Electronic rostering systems were originally developed to enable the
NHS to cope with the complexity of flexible, family-friendly working,
while at the same time addressing the very tight constraints necessarily
imposed to ensure that wards are staffed safely at all times.
Such systems have to store all the rules necessary to produce safe
rosters, the details of individual members of staff, the working
constraints agreed with them and any request they may have in a
particular roster period. Furthermore, they must store the targets for
every ward and every shift, enabling them to be altered as necessary to
reflect fluctuating demand for the services.
Fitting all of this together is a complex jigsaw puzzle and when it
is done manually, or in many other commercially available systems
automatically, it rarely works accurately. This means the contract hours
paid for by the NHS are often not used in the most effective way.
As a result, extra cover has to be bought in at higher rates — either
through the use of bank staff or through agencies. This represents an
immense financial burden on the NHS. It is also very difficult and time
consuming for senior managers to compile these rosters, given the
complexity of patient care requirements and disparate staff working
patterns.
Optimize Auto Roster resolves all of these problems in the most
efficient manner, literally at the touch of a button. All the rules are
applied, all contracted hours are used in the most efficient way to
prevent overstaffing, and where understaffing occurs, the system seeks
to even out staff deployment in the most effective way.
Optimize uses a complex series of calculations developed by PowerRtec
to produce the optimum solution to the rostering problem in every
individual case. This provides a more satisfactory solution for the
trust, since staff are allocated in the most appropriate fashion and
ensures that costs are kept to a minimum. It can take up to two days to
manually prepare a roster for a large ward or clinical area. Optimize
Auto Roster will do it automatically in a few minutes.
Tony Ive, Managing Director of Powertec said: “Optimize Auto Roster
will relieve a great deal of stress from senior managers, by taking away
a large and unwelcome administrative burden. As a result, it will free
up their time to focus on clinical work and for the management duties
the Trust really needs them to perform. At the same time it will ensure
that the rosters are as efficient as possible, both in the way they
utilise resources and with regard to their cost effectiveness. Overall,
it will relieve stress, assist with ward safety, and drive down costs“.
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