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Business Operations

eRostering

Letterkenny paves the way forward for Saolta Hospital Group

  

Introduction

Rostering in a clinical setting is a fundamental activity often performed in a dynamic, changing and demanding environment. It’s important to optimise staffing associated with these rosters as staff payroll costs account for over 70% of the healthcare budget. 

Following approval from the Dept. of Public Enterprise & Reform, a team was put together including the Director of Nursing at Letterkenny General Hospital (LGH), wider HSE representatives, Office of the CIO and Procurement to undertake a tender process. This resulted in a framework of suitable suppliers which should cater for the varying needs within the wider public health service. LGH selected Allocate HealthRoster software from this framework, with a view to roll out to the wider Saolta group in time. 

The Challenge

The challenge for LGH is to ensure that it can deploy the right staff, to the right place at the right time to deliver high quality and safe care to patients. The deployment of these resources and skills to best meet patient needs must also be balanced with staff satisfaction and work life balance.

eRostering

Governance

A Project Board was set up with The Office of Nursing and Midwifery Services Director as executive sponsor. It approved a local team consisting of a Project Manager and Systems Administrator, to work with Allocate. The initial scope was Nursing and Midwifery staff. A clear communication strategy supports the implementation and HealthRoster roll-out process and the planning of next steps with the Project Board.

Solution

As a cloud-hosted service, Letterkenny General now uses a suite of products from Allocate to include the following:

  • HealthRoster – eRostering system Launched 30th April 2015. 5 wards were set up initially and rollout is continuing.
  • Employee OnLine – all nursing staff can now enjoy the ease of access to view rosters from any internet enabled device in any location, make duty requests, and manage leave requests directly to HealthRoster

 

Future plans include;

 

  • BankStaff – Go Live date planned for September 2015, this will enable managers to utilise bank staff resource effectively and efficiently.
  • RosterPerform – to enable managers to review and report on staffing activities
  • SafeCare – to allow nursing staff to capture actual patient numbers by acuity and dependency, and see if their staffing levels match this demand (planned for launch November 2015)
  • Interface Project – expectation is that System will readily interface with SAP HR and Payroll. Scoping meetings and analysis workshops have commenced to examine interfaces required so that a seamless transfer of necessary data will result in accurate payroll outputs.

 

Benefits

 

To date benefits include: 

  • Improved rostering practices and access to rosters
  • Improved reporting
  • Improved workforce planning
  • Improved productivity and utilisation of substantive and temporary staff
  • Reduction in administration tasks and functions
  • Improved leave management

For Further Information / Contacts

Michelle Donnelly      eRoster Project Manager – LGH                michelle.donnelly1@hse.

Susan Donnelly         Senior Project Manager – OoCIO, HSE       susan.donnelly@hse.ie  

Deirdre Keown          eRoster System Administrator - LGH          deirdre.keown@hse.ie

Case Studies