Nurse Scheduling Decision Support Tool

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Nurse Scheduling Decision Support Tool
Team Desperate Graduates

• Chris Johnson Database Administrator,
  Programmer/Web Designer
• Erin Mangold Deputy Team Leader, UI Designer,
• Planner
• Andrea Scott Systems Analyst, Testing
  Quality
• Patrice Young Team Leader, Historian

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Agenda

• System Purpose
• Requirements for the Developers
• System Functionality
• User Interface
• Implementation and Deployment

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System Purpose

• Increased Efficiency
• Time to create is significantly reduced
• Payroll dollars spent reduced
• Ease of Use
• No manual math that results in mistakes
• Only information needed is list of nurses
  requesting dates off

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System Functionality

• Requires minimal processing time
• Allows different scheduling options to be
  reviewed
• Streamlined due to user interface

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System Requirements

• Schedule nurses to shifts for the next day at the
  hospital
• User-entered inputs
• i.e. Nurse pay rates and scheduling preferences
• Outputs (worksheet)
• List of feasible schedules and their total costs
• List of soft constraints for each schedule
• Nurse Pay Rate Information
• Identification of nursing staff base pay rates
• Calculation of base pay rate shift differential
  (macros)
• 10 for 2nd shift
• 20 for 3rd shift

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System Requirements

• Hospital Scheduling Constraints
• Must have at least one nurse per shift
• May need more than one nurse per shift
• Hospital/Nurse Contract Constraints
• Nurse cannot work more than one shift per day
• Nurse cannot work shifts on subsequent days
  unless shifts intervene

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System Requirements

• Nurse Personal Scheduling Constraints
• Shifts they are unable work
• Constraints may change daily
• Management Constraints
• Preference for not scheduling nurses to
  subsequent 3rd shifts
• Preference for not scheduling nurses to
  subsequent 1st shifts

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Workflow Diagram
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How User Interface Works

• Program divided into 4 worksheets
• Tabs at the bottom of each worksheet toggle page
• First Worksheet
• Overview
• Full description of what program does
• List of user rules and constraints
• Input, Output, Processing descriptions (whats
  happening)
• Second Worksheet
• User Instructions
• Steps to running program successfully

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How User Interface Works

• Third Worksheet
• User Input
• Full description of what program does
• List of user rules and constraints
• Input, Output, Processing descriptions (whats
  happening)
• Fourth Worksheet
• Solutions
• List of every feasible scheduling outcome
• Ordered by lowest to highest cost

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How User Interface Works

• Whats Happening
• Any yellow cell can be edited, others are locked
• Clicking the computer icon starts processing
• User can enter values into editable cells for
  macro to use
• Processing
• Runs a macro in the background
• Grabs user input info from yellow cells
• Code behind the interface
• Checks each possible combination
• Applies criteria from shift pay rate cells

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Implementation and Deployment

• Training
• No formal training
• Up to high level management
• Program contains directions and
• input descriptions
• Ease of Implementation
• Just copy file to computer
• No installation
• Ready for use

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Implementation and Deployment

• Physical Medium
• Mail a CD containing excel file
• Personally deliver CD containing file
• Electronic Medium
• Email a zipped file containing excel file
• Online download of excel file

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Recap

• Purpose of the system
• Functionality of the system
• Requirements for the system developers
• How the user interface works
• How the system is implemented/deployed

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Questions?