Labor Savings in Pharmacy Scheduling - a StaffReady Case Study

Spokane, WA, April 11, 2021 --(PR.com)-- Background - Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is a 550-bed pediatric hospital and was the nation’s first pediatric hospital when it opened in 1855. The hospital pharmacy employs 250 staff members, split evenly between pharmacists/administration and technicians/support staff. Soodabeh Jaffari is a Senior Pharmacist with responsibility over scheduling for the department.

Problem
Originally the CHOP pharmacy schedule was created manually in a spreadsheet that was printed and hung on a bulletin board in the main pharmacy. A blank paper for leave requests was also posted, and staff members would need to write their name, leave dates and the date the leave was requested. Because of this process, employees could not make leave requests unless they were physically in the building.

Jaffari was responsible for collecting leave and shift change requests, updating them in the spreadsheet, printing/posting a new copy, notifying employees of changes that affected them and whether their leave was approved or denied.

“It was a difficult, cumbersome process, because we had staff working in multiple areas areas of the hospital, but the schedule was located only in the main pharmacy. This meant there were people frequently calling in or stopping by to check on the schedule,” Jaffari said. “I also spent the majority of my day finding and contacting people on the schedule with each change.”

Reading handwritten vacation requests was similar to trying to read prescriptions from the medical staff. Time was wasted on guesswork trying to decipher names and dates, and sometimes mistakes were made due to misinterpretation. When the leave request sheet was full, it was removed and replaced with a new blank paper, so staff were then left unaware of each other’s’ requests. This lack of transparency led to frustration when leave requests were denied when staff were not aware of their “place in queue.”

Solution
StaffReady Scheduling offered an automated, cloud-based solution to replace the manual scheduling process with a rules engine and notification features that could handle all of CHOP’s needs.

During the initial implementation, Jaffari simply handed over a copy of her spreadsheet template to the StaffReady implementation team that included employee names, job descriptions, availability and rotations. The StaffReady team recreated all the information in the CHOP’s unique software license. Both teams then worked together to tailor the schedule to the department’s unique needs before rolling it out to the team. StaffReady’s platform provided all the information an employer or manager needed in one place in an organized format that was always up to date.

Results
StaffReady drastically reduced the amount of time that Jaffari spent chasing down people to notify them of schedule changes and leave approvals/denials. Since it is a cloud-based solution, the staff no longer need to be in the main hospital pharmacy to view the schedule or make a leave request, as they can now access the schedule from anywhere using a web browser. They can even submit a leave request for their next vacation while on a current leave and enjoy checking their schedules from home.

“Recent hires are amazed, especially if they are coming from another workplace using a paper-based system or spreadsheet. They’re very pleased,” Jaffari said. “Anyone who has worked for us is a big cheerleader for StaffReady.” Jaffari has been utilizing StaffReady Scheduling for over five years now and has no plans to change anytime soon.

Breakdown
Once StaffReady Scheduling was implemented at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia:

Weekly: 87% reduction time in spent with building and managing the employee schedule on a weekly basis

Daily: 2+ hours eliminated in phone calls, emails and other methods to reach employees and fill shifts on a daily basis

Conclusion
The StaffReady Scheduling solution improved daily life for the CHOP pharmacy team. Schedules can be viewed and PTO or shift change requests can be submitted from anywhere, whether the employee is in a different hospital unit or even a different city on vacation. The time-stamped documentation provides transparency for leave requests, so staff members know that everyone is being treated equally. As the hospital and the department has grown over the years, quadrupling in size, the software has been able to efficiently scale with the size of the staff and complexity of running a 24/7 operation.

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