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Scheduling Software for Large Organisations?

Posted by Cliff on from the virtual-gant-charting dept.

DrCJM asks: "My wife works for a large hospital here in Australia, where her main role is building, managing and (where needed!) enforcing a schedule for all the junior doctors. This schedule covers several campuses, different specialty streams, different expertise levels, and so on. I'm sure there's a scheduling software package out there that can do all of the basic scheduling much faster than their current method of sitting down with very large bits of paper and lots of coloured pens. What software have Slashdot readers encountered that might do the job? Open Source would be great, but commercial efforts are acceptable too."

60 comments

  1. Cron by Captain+Pedantic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Cron is the major choice for this kind of application, it comes as default on every unix, and you can also get wincron.

    --

    None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
    1. Re:Cron by Knights+who+say+'INT · · Score: 1

      I think they mean software that optimizes time allocation given a set of limited resources.

      There are streamlined genetic algorithms applications, and a few new ideas -- ant colonies and swarm algorithms among them.

      I'd say, roll your own in Matlab.

    2. Re:Cron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yer an id*ot.

    3. Re:Cron by BoomerSooner · · Score: 1

      Lol, that is one of the most on-topic posts that completely misses the point of the original poster. Congrats on getting your frist-post not modded troll.

  2. DOCS2000 by rider_prider · · Score: 5, Informative

    not too expensive, uses funky math to generate schedules for physicians. http://www.docs2000.net/ web based, they host the app and data... We have just started using it where I work, and it has been positive so far.

  3. Check the data storage by josecanuc · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just make sure that whatever software you use can handle your volume, unlike ComAir ;-)

    1. Re:Check the data storage by TykeClone · · Score: 1

      Data storage wasn't the problem - it was integer space :)

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
    2. Re:Check the data storage by josecanuc · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I thought Integers were data... ;-)

    3. Re:Check the data storage by TykeClone · · Score: 1

      Rolling the counter != running out of disk space.

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
    4. Re:Check the data storage by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Rolling the counter == Problem storing Data

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      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    5. Re:Check the data storage by TykeClone · · Score: 1

      Touche.

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
  4. Sears uses by david+duncan+scott · · Score: 2, Informative

    a package from Radiant Systems, and personally I'd recomend against it.

    --

    This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander

  5. If commercial is ok too by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hate to say it, but this is the *only* thing Microsoft did right in Exchange/Outlook/Pocket Outlook- and took it to extremes.

    Extreme Silliness perhaps- It's possible, for instance, in a properly set up Exchange/Outlook system, to view everybody's calendars, schedule a meeting, invite everybody to the meeting, and have them synchronize down to their PDAs, which remind them not only of that meeting, but also of the next one, which means that at the end of the meeting you have x # of people, all of whose PDAs are ringing to tell them it's time to move to the next room.

    Seems to me it would be good to help schedule loades of people, and if you have a wifi network, automagically synchronize PDAs over the wifi network to inform people where to go next.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    1. Re:If commercial is ok too by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      how does that though automatise _creating_ of those schedules?

      it doesn't, you're still stuck with the problem of creating schedules, even if you have solved the problem of distributing those schedules to the people(which shouldn't really be a problem in this case as they depend on the schedule for their education).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:If commercial is ok too by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      I concentrated on the enforcement in my original description- but I'd have to know a lot more about the current process the school goes through before I'd be able to advise how to use any software for *creating* the schedules. "Junior Doctors" might have also thrown me a bit- did you mean interns? Interns would be a different scheduling problem- actually an easier one, since you could group them in Outlook and schedule them all at one shot for a given class or ward work period. Doctors, on the other hand, would be much more individualized, and require different schdules for each.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    3. Re:If commercial is ok too by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      2nd reply- I didn't misread. Says almost NOTHING about CREATING the schedule, of which I know of no non-experimental software that does that automagically for you. What was asked was software for managing and (where needed!) enforcing a schedule for all the junior doctors, in which case my original reply is correct- Exchange Server and Outlook does this quite nicely, and certainly better than large pieces of paper with colored pens, which is their current hardware. :-)

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    4. Re:If commercial is ok too by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      "My wife works for a large hospital here in Australia, where her main role is building, managing and (where needed!) enforcing a schedule for all the junior doctors."

      building a schedule means creating a schedule, at least in my book.

      what she's having difficulty with is managing those schedules, setting them so that they don't get impossible shifts, not too many hours per week and so - this is fucking hard by hand when dealing with thousands.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    5. Re:If commercial is ok too by DrCJM · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

      Still, the Outlook/Exchange method of enforcement has it's pluses.

    6. Re:If commercial is ok too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      how does that though automatise

      automate, perhaps?

    7. Re:If commercial is ok too by afidel · · Score: 0, Troll

      Sounds like Exchange + MS Project is a perfect solution then. You can constrain tasks, track resources, etc. So build your schedule in Project and have it assign Exchange appointments automatically. Should work TONS better than pen and paper, especially since visualizing changes is so much easier and transitioning the bulk of the project from week to week is almost efortless.

      --
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    8. Re:If commercial is ok too by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      what she's having difficulty with is managing those schedules, setting them so that they don't get impossible shifts, not too many hours per week and so - this is fucking hard by hand when dealing with thousands.

      Exchange has settable warnings about impossible shifts and excessive hours per week (though the standard installation has 40 hour weeks and 15 minutes between appointments on those warnings- something tells me this situation would call for somewhat higher limits than that) which propagate down to the PDA level. Like I said- I was kind of a dumb ass stressing the enforcement rather than the management...but the functionality does exist.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    9. Re:If commercial is ok too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      how does that though automatise _creating_ of those schedules?
      "Automatise"? You mean "automate", yes? Sheesh.
    10. Re:If commercial is ok too by gfim · · Score: 1

      at the end of the meeting you have x # of people, all of whose PDAs are ringing to tell them it's time to move to the next room.

      Don't tell me... you work for HP.

      --
      Graham
  6. Mozart Oz by fuzzbrain · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know alot about this but my understanding is that languages such as Mozart-oz which support constraint programming are ideal for this sort of thing. There's a demo here.
    A company called Friartuck makes commercial scheduling software using Mozart.

  7. call-scheduler by cybergeak · · Score: 2, Informative

    its what they do, and if its not exactly what you want, they'll customize it for ya i'm pretty sure.

    http://www.call-scheduler.com/

  8. I doubt it by rduke15 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm sure there's a scheduling software package out there that can do all of the basic scheduling much faster than their current method

    I seriously doubt it. This is one area where I can't imagine a computer beating a big board holding pieces of (colored) cardboard and a few whiteboard pens. If it needs to be viewable over the web, then set up a webcam in front of it! :-)

    One reason why computers are so bad at it and the old way so good (aside from the mere ease of use and reliability aspects), is the size. You just cannot see and understand as much interrelated information in one glance on a computer scren as you can on a big board on the wall.

    (How are these specialised boards for planning called in English, anyway?)

    1. Re:I doubt it by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      A computer works just as well as a whiteboard- you just create a virutal whiteboard. Better in fact because you can sort and group individuals to create different whiteboards quickly.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    2. Re:I doubt it by OrangeSpyderMan · · Score: 1

      One reason why computers are so bad at it and the old way so good (aside from the mere ease of use and reliability aspects), is the size. You just cannot see and understand as much interrelated information in one glance on a computer scren as you can on a big board on the wall.

      I agree if you look at it this way - but look at it another way. The HUGE advantage a computer based system would have is that everyone except the person in charge of the whole planning can look at only the information that concerns them. Individuals can see their own planning in a glimpse - team leads can handle planning for all their team members. The only person that suffers from what you describe here is if you have one person that's in charge of the whole damn thing. That may be a good reason in itself to split up into sub team. Handling such a large quantity of direct reports is tricky for many other reasons than not being able to see all the data on the screen at one time :-) I'm manager of 18 direct reports... it's too many.

      --
      Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
    3. Re:I doubt it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      have you ever heard of projectors?

  9. You're poor wife... by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It must be hard for your wife, seing babies mauled by dingos. I couldn't work in a hospital, I would be tempted to EAT DA BABEH!

  10. What does your scheduling problem look like? by zhiwenchong · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If your scheduling problem can be quantified (i.e. expressed as an LP), you can use this to solve for the optimal schedule given all sorts of constraints.

    GAMS - General Algebraic Modeling System.

    They use this for airline crew scheduling and all sorts of other stuff.

    Also, look at this AMPL - A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming

    I hope I haven't misunderstood your question though... (all you may need is iCal.... or maybe not.)

    1. Re:What does your scheduling problem look like? by jgrahn · · Score: 1
      They use this for airline crew scheduling and all sorts of other stuff.

      I once worked for a company that did exactly this: sold airline crew scheduling software and support. It is not trivial -- that workplace was crowded with maths and CS PhDs, the algorithms were very advanced, and they always had the latest and greatest Unix servers so that the schedule calculations took hours rather than days.

      I suppose it's worth it if you can find a schedule which saves a few empty flights a year ...

  11. VA's VistA by neitzsche · · Score: 4, Informative

    Either VistA or OpenVistA.

    The US Department of Vetern Affairs created VistA for it's hospitals. It includes an elaborate physician scheduling package. It is in the public domain. The CPRS component provides a GUI view that many physicians and most clerks like.

    OpenVistA is a commerialized flavor of the public domain software, which you can have installed and maintained from companies such as Medsphere.

    --
    "God is dead." - Frederik Nietzsche
    1. Re:VA's VistA by Mumpsman · · Score: 0

      neitzsche,

      Have you had success getting VistA or OpenVistA running under Linux? I'm used to commercial MUMPS based products like http://idx.com/ or http://meidtech.com/, but plan on trying to get VistA running this weekend. It would be good to get some feedback before I jump into it...

      --
      No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
    2. Re:VA's VistA by ZooDog · · Score: 1

      Here's the link to VistaA on sourceforge.

  12. scheduling software for hospitals. by chuckchuck · · Score: 3, Informative

    Per-Se http://www.per-se.com/index.asp offers software for health care resource scheduling. It's been around for 20 or so years. You add in all of the union/practice rules, along with resource needs, along with resources, and it can automatically generate schedules. In addition, it can generate all of the reports which might be needed during audit time.

    1. Re:scheduling software for hospitals. by araven · · Score: 1

      You beat me to it. My husband works for them, they're sort of the Microsoft of staff scheduling, but only in the corporation sense, not the bad product sense ;-).

      They're actually pretty forward-thinking when it comes to technology. I've been impressed with what I know of the staff scheduling product, ANSOS One-Staff and how well it's developed and maintained. These people are serious about good software maintenance. The product is evolving well too, my husband did a substantial amount of the design on the Web interface for the current version.

      I've been told not to start an "EA wives" sort of thread here, so I'll stop at just complimenting the product. ;-).

      ~

      --
      "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." -Emerson
    2. Re:scheduling software for hospitals. by Torqued · · Score: 1

      I can't believe I missed this the first time around...

      I've been an ANSOS One-Staff user for a little over 5 years now. The software development has been a little slow over the past few years but seems to be picking up. They have some new leadership in key positions (product director and VP) as well as some new development resources.

      It's definately worth taking a look at.

    3. Re:scheduling software for hospitals. by araven · · Score: 1

      I'll point out your post to my husband. Always nice when a customer likes the product enough to recommend it!

      Put the credit where it's due though ;-) Not with executives or cheap contract coders. They have a consummately professional and skilled in-house development staff.

      ~

      --
      "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." -Emerson
  13. OnCall Commercial tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the United States, a lot of teaching hospitals use OnCall to do scheduling; I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but it's pretty popular. http://www.amion.com/OnCall.html

  14. Ask an Operations Research expert by DaveInAustin · · Score: 1

    This is the application area of "operations research". The OR society is doing a marketing campaign . There are a lot of packages for this type of scheduling, and there are a lot of software components to help you write your own applications as well. One is ilog scheduler .

    --
    --- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
  15. your wife should be replaced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If this is your wife's job, she's tired of doing it with *markers*, so has you Ask Slashdot... she doesn't deserve her job, and should be replaced with someone who takes it seriously. If I were her boss, I would instantly replace her with someone with some ideas of their own. There's a million scheduling programs out there (such as Exchange and CorporateTime/Oracle Calendar), using charts and colored markers is ludicrous.

    1. Re:your wife should be replaced by DrCJM · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except, of course, that she can DO this job and the hospital won't spend any money looking for another option.

      She's asked.

      Lots.

  16. too many "fuzzy" variables by bte · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My wife is the same (works as a nurse in an Australian hospital) and asked me a similar question about 12-18 months ago. At the time she was sick of always getting a bum roster because she wasn't buddies with the people who worked out the roster. I originally thought that it would be easy, just put in a bunch of variables and it would spit out an optimal roster. Then I actually started thinking about it and there are a lot of variables that are hard to actually quantify into hard values to put into some sort of program.

    Some of the inputs would include:

    * shift lengths - staff on this ward can work either 8,10 or 12 hour shifts
    * number of shifts - staff can be anywhere from 1 shift per fortnight up to 10
    * time between shifts - union mandates that staff must have X number of hours between successive shifts
    * number of staff required during certain periods of the day - daytime needs more staff than nightime (when patients are sleeping)

    I know what you're thinking, most of those variables you can put down into hard facts, true, but ones you can't are stuff like:

    * each staff gets X red requests per roster and Y yellow requests. Red requests are days the staff would REALLY like to have off (eg. family members Birthday or similar). Yellow requests are days that staff would prefer to have off if given a choice.
    * some staff prefer to work weekends, some don't. This is based on personal preference of having time off on the weekend (to spend with family) or working on the weekend and getting a higher rate of pay. Same goes for night (eg. graveyard) shifts.
    * A program could spit out a roster that technically fits the criteria, but from a human perspective is less workable. Eg. working alternate morning then evening shifts all week. The better option would be to work ALL morning or ALL evening shifts.
    * Some staff don't get along with other staff. I think they need to grow up a bit, but this does indeed happen, some staff refuse to work with others they don't get along with. If they somehow get accidentally rostered on with someone they don't like, they take a sick day (which costs the hospital as they have to get temp staff in to cover).

    These are just a few things that come to mind. In the ned I realised that it was probably a situation where a program wouldn't be able to do it as well as a person. The reason is simply because there were to many personal factors to take into account and that these factors would change from one ward to the next based on the people in each ward.

    1. Re:too many "fuzzy" variables by DrCJM · · Score: 1

      It's a bit different for the doctors - particularly the interns. The interns have set amounts of time they *have* to spend doing various different streams in the hospital. There are also a certain number of graveyard/weekend shifts each, certain holiday allowances, required separations between weekend shifts etc. But I agree, quantifying *all* the variables is going to be a bitch.

      Still, if the system can spit out a base schedule that would save a lot of time. They already have a system where 'personal requests' (religious issues, personal likes/dislikes) are up to the individuals to sort out through swaps and if you can't arrange a swap with someone, tough.

    2. Re:too many "fuzzy" variables by bte · · Score: 1

      I've put one of our sales guys onto this slashdot story as a lead ;)

      We (the company I work for) actually develop some other software for QH, so you never know, something might comes of it...

      (sorry I misread that you were looking for scheduling for doctors, which as you say has different parameters again. I also think the people of my wife's ward have had it too good for too long with their personalised rosters.)

    3. Re:too many "fuzzy" variables by BenjyD · · Score: 1

      There is an entire research area dedicated to this kind of thing - Operations Research.
      All your points probably could be encoded in some sort of mathematical programming model without too much trouble. Just add your additional points as factors affecting the objective function value.

    4. Re:too many "fuzzy" variables by norkakn · · Score: 1

      I agree with your post except the "without too much trouble" part

  17. You Fucking Retards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft Exchange. Is there anything else?

  18. Don't go with Exchange by rsax · · Score: 1

    Just don't make that mistake of going for an Exchange and Outlook combo. Go with Novell Groupwise instead. In the end you will get the same functionality with fewer viruses.

  19. Microsoft Project by ajpalm · · Score: 1

    Have you looked at Microsoft Project? This is what its made for!

  20. Quantum Leap by MyRuger · · Score: 1

    Have you checked out something like Quantum Leap

  21. Groupwise available on Linux by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1
    Groupwise is also available on Linux.

    That may not seem like a big deal if you are not currently using Linux outside of your infrastructure, but it does mean that MS-Exchange can't keep you from mixing MS-Windows, Linux, and OS X as it best suits the needs of your organization.

    However, neither of these address the issue of scheduling thousands of staff more or less automatically.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  22. FET by lalesculiviu · · Score: 1

    Hello. Maybe FET can suit your needs. It is free software to automatically schedule the timetable of an institution, but maybe it can be used in your domain.

  23. FET by lalesculiviu · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am very sorry for replying twice, but I forgot to send the address of FET. It is http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/. It is designed for schools, high-schools and universities, but maybe you find it suitable for your needs. It is free software (GNU/GPL).

  24. Mod Parent Up by ptarra · · Score: 1

    Fet (if she can adapt it) or something similar is what she would need to use. The schedule problem is not solved and you can only get a close solution using heuristic methods like the genetic algorithm implemented in FET.

    The task is not trivial, believe me.

  25. just announced by Phrack · · Score: 1

    Remembered this from a MacWorld product announcement:

    http://www.prnchart.com/

    available for Windows or Mac

    I have no idea if it is in the right ballpark. Just a conduit for a news blurb.

    --
    Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
  26. Lightning Bolt (http://www.lightning-bolt.com by nietzche2005 · · Score: 1

    It's not free but it's the best that's out there for automated medical staff scheduling.

  27. Physician Scheduler by Norm-456 · · Score: 1

    She should take a look at Physician Scheduler.

    It's a rules-based system, so all the sundry variables that pertain to the work and the people are taken into account to automatically generate the schedule. The system's been around for the better part of 10 years and is widely used in healthcare.

    http://www.atstaff.com/Products/PhysicianProduct.h tm

    1. Re:Physician Scheduler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You gotta be kidding, this product sucks. They force you to do a "free upgrade" every few years and charge you thousands to re-configure the software as part of the upgrade. If you want to separate yourself from your wallet, then this is the product for you.