D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 2 7
S
taffing has
always been
one of the
biggest challenges in
surgical leadership.
Even with the best
plan in place,
Murphy's Law
prevails. Someone
tends to call out on
the one day when
you're super busy
and that one case
that had to get done to use the same staff on an afternoon case runs
over. Here are some tips that I've learned over the years that could
help.
Late days. For those unexpected late days when cases run over
their scheduled times, or that late add-on case, you may want to
assign routine late days. I once ran a center when, on busy winter
days, we might have several rooms running over. The way we kept it
as fair as possible was assigning all staff one first late and one second
late day per week. (We even let the staff choose which days, as long
as we had the schedule covered.) If they wanted to switch with a
team member, they could do so as long as they notified the
appropriate manager. Assigning lates in advance is way easier than
1
8 Scheduling Tips to Make Staffing Easier
Late differentials, staggered start times and other creative solutions.
Staffing
Leslie Mattson, RN, BSHM, LNC
• ANY IDEAS? Your team could have out-of-the-box solutions to scheduling challenges that you might not have considered.
