Article Highlights
- The problem: Manual scheduling is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and error-prone
- The solution: PowerTime, an EMS scheduling system
- The benefits: Streamline schedule management, minimize overtime, and eliminate miscommunications
The problem: Manual EMS scheduling
Proper EMS scheduling drives the success of emergency care operations. But since you rely on manual, paper-based processes, scheduling at your EMS agency is rife with complexities and challenges. Without a streamlined, automated system for managing paramedic and EMT shifts, you spend excessive time putting schedules together each week and inevitably encounter errors or face miscommunications – no matter how organized you try to be.
In addition to being frustrating for you, these miscommunications impact personnel across your department. You might update and create a new schedule version, only to have staff accidentally refer to an outdated document. As a result, they show up for the wrong shift, causing confusion and an inability to meet minimum staffing requirements. These scheduling errors ultimately result in 174% more turnover than organizations with seamless scheduling processes.
Manual scheduling processes also make it challenging to ensure you meet staffing requirements while accounting for individual scheduling requests. If you aren’t careful, you might overschedule staff or fail to approve their time-off request. When this happens regularly, it inevitably leads to burnout, impedes employee safety and performance, and diminishes your ability to provide proper emergency care.
The solution: An EMS scheduling system
PowerDMS’s EMS crew scheduling software, PowerTime, ensures your agency is sufficiently staffed. This EMS schedule app warns you when staff are overscheduled and can account for the following variables when you create schedules:
- 24/7 coverage
- Rotating shifts
- Staffing requirements and qualifications
PowerTime also provides automated scheduling updates, so everyone is always kept informed of changes to paramedic and EMT shifts. You can use this EMS scheduling system to receive open shift updates for administrators and employees so that you can fill available shifts quickly. In addition, you can also enter minimum EMS staffing requirements and receive warnings when you have insufficient shift coverage.
This automated medical staff scheduling software tracks approvals, hours accrued, and time-off banks so employees and supervisors can easily manage vacation requests. The best part? As a digital system, PowerDMS’s EMS schedule app provides 24/7 access to this information. This accessibility means that supervisors can digitally edit EMS schedules, staff can swap or pick up shifts, and staff can view real-time schedules, at any time and anywhere.
The benefits of cloud-based employee scheduling
PowerTime streamlines your schedule management process and verifies that you’re meeting EMS staffing level requirements – without needing to do any manual calculations. As a result, you eliminate the pen-and-paper schedule errors and miscommunications that often accompany multiple document versions. PowerTime also minimizes the likelihood of overscheduling, which helps your agency:
- Reduce burnout
- Improve safety in the field
- Provide high-quality services to the community
Because this EMS schedule app provides staff 24/7 access to the most updated schedule – from any device or location – employees always know exactly when they’re needed. PowerTime thus ensures your EMS staffing schedule meets the needs of both employees and the community so you can provide the best services possible.
Learn more
Ready to simplify scheduling at your EMS agency? Schedule a demo today to learn how PowerTime can improve your schedule management process.