When emergencies strike , hospitals and health systems must be ready to respond with the right provider at the right time. Accurate on-call scheduling and communications play a critical role in ensuring that the correct provider is available and easily contacted — every time — to meet urgent patient needs. That’s why up-to-date on-call information and seamless, efficient communications are vital for fast time-to-treatment and optimal patient outcomes.
When on-call schedules and contact information are outdated or out of sync across the healthcare enterprise, it increases administrative work and drives up labor costs. At the same time, it can increase the likelihood of contacting the wrong provider, disrupting precious personal time, and exacerbating the burnout crisis. With 65% of physicians experiencing burnout , the last thing healthcare organizations want to do is add to their frustration.
What’s more, data inaccuracies and associated delays can increase your risk of Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) violations resulting from on-call coverage gaps or insufficient on-call policies and procedures.
What can your healthcare organization do to address these on-call challenges? Let’s explore how optimizing on-call scheduling and communication can improve patient care, provider satisfaction, cost control, and compliance —and the important role technology plays in helping you achieve these goals.
Every second wasted tracking down the right on-call provider can have serious repercussions. Lacking centralized visibility into who’s on call, clinicians and/or administrative staff often end up searching multiple sources or accessing outdated schedules. As a result, they may mistakenly contact an off-duty provider or send communications that go unanswered before reaching the right person. This stresses out clinicians, frustrates off-duty providers, and delays critical patient care.
By automating on-call scheduling and communications, healthcare organizations can streamline workflows, eliminate manual errors, and reduce coverage gaps and care delays. Implementation of a centralized on-call scheduling solution that integrates with clinical communication systems enables healthcare organizations to:
Many hospitals and health systems are still using manual or disparate on-call processes and technologies across departments, locations, and affiliates. These complicated workflows make it nearly impossible to maintain and access an accurate, up-to-date enterprise on-call schedule — or to easily identify coverage gaps. Clinicians are relying on spreadsheets, back-and-forth emails, faxes, and even paper and pencil to publish and distribute on-call schedules. And if providers swap shifts, there’s no way to update the enterprise on-call schedule in real time to ensure everyone has access to the latest information.
As merger and acquisition (M&A) activity continues in the healthcare space, the number of technologies in play — and lack of interoperability — are only adding to on-call complexity. Without proper governance, enterprise-wide consistency, and strong alignment between clinical and IT leadership, on-call chaos will continue to spiral out of control.
In today’s healthcare environment, maintaining the status quo in on-call scheduling and communication just won’t cut it anymore. The chaos created by decentralized on-call systems and processes can result in:
Patient safety issues
Lack of visibility into accurate on-call information enterprise-wide can make it difficult to locate and reach the right on-call provider, leading to delays in patient care and potential negative impacts on patient outcomes. Prolonged waiting and turnaround times in emergency departments have been shown to decrease both quality outcomes and patient satisfaction .
Provider dissatisfaction and burnout
Without real-time access to accurate on-call schedules and up-to-date provider contact information, the likelihood of reaching out to an off-duty provider increases significantly. These preventable disruptions can erode provider satisfaction and contribute to burnout. With 85% of physicians citing work-life balance as the top factor in choosing a new job , a reputation for frequent communication mistakes can hamper recruitment and retention efforts. In addition, on-call systems and processes that restrict creation of equitable, balanced schedules and make it difficult for providers to swap shifts further contribute to a negative provider experience.
Increased administrative burden
When staff waste time locating the right on-call provider because contact information or schedules are outdated, it causes needless frustration, takes them away from other urgent work, and increases administrative labor costs.
EMTALA compliance violations
Data accuracy, access, and security are essential to ensure safety and compliance — and avoid potential penalties and lawsuits. When you rely on disparate processes and manual systems, it can be challenging to ensure the accuracy and consistency of on-call schedules and provider contact data. In addition, it can impede your ability to identify and fill on-call coverage gaps, putting your organization at risk for EMTALA compliance violations.
By rethinking your approach to on-call scheduling and communications, your organization can address these critical challenges and achieve greater levels of on-call accuracy and efficiency.
Hospitals and health systems require a connected digital solution that centralizes on-call schedules across the entire healthcare enterprise and affiliate groups into a single source of truth with real-time updates. In addition, they require intelligent automation that streamlines workflows, eliminates manual errors, and simplifies compliance.
With centralized on-call schedules and on-call provider search, your entire healthcare enterprise gains on-demand access to accurate and reliable on-call information so they can contact the right provider immediately. This approach results in significant benefits for clinicians, administrative teams, patients, and the organization’s operating margins, including:
Accurate provider on call
Maintain a single, centralized source of truth with real-time data flow to and from department and affiliate schedules to ensure information is always up to date. On-demand visibility and access to on-call schedules for all team members and affiliate groups make it easy to ensure complete on-call coverage while integration with incumbent EHR and clinical communication platforms facilitates immediate contact of the correct on-call providers.
Lower costs
Centralizing departmental on-call schedules in one unified source of truth with real-time updates eliminates tedious double entry, reduces administrative labor costs, and frees resources to focus on other priorities. Online provider search — along with seamless integration with EHR and clinical communication systems — cuts down on time spent trying to find and contact the right provider.
Beyond labor savings, streamlined on-call scheduling and communication workflows drive other cost efficiencies as well. Studies show that extending the wait time for patients arriving in the emergency department with a serious condition by 10 minutes will increase a hospital’s cost of care by an average of 6% . As many healthcare organizations struggle with tight margins, on-call automation represents a compelling opportunity for savings.
Provider satisfaction and retention
A unified, automated approach to on call fosters a better overall employee experience for providers and administrative team members. By centralizing departmental on-call schedules into an accessible, up-to-date enterprise database, your organization can ensure schedule transparency and accessibility to increase provider satisfaction. Plus, on-demand access to current on-call schedules and provider information reduces the chances of accidentally reaching out to off-duty providers and interrupting their valuable personal time.
A centralized on-call solution that includes a mobile app empowers providers and drives autonomy for even higher levels of satisfaction. Mobile app functionality enables them to view and swap shifts on any device — automatically updating the centralized on-call schedule in real time.
Better patient care
A unified on-call solution with centralized schedules and intelligent search makes it easy to locate the right schedule, provider, and contact information so patients receive the care they need in a timely and efficient manner. Seamless integration with clinical communication systems allows care team members to reach specialists and get consultations faster in critical patient situations where every second counts. By minimizing delays in patient care, a centralized on-call solution can help reduce time spent in the emergency department and the overall length of hospital stays.
Risk mitigation
On-call schedule automation provides rules-based reporting to alleviate the burden of managing compliance. Real-time visibility into a centralized on-call schedule allows your organization to identify and fill coverage gaps, mitigating EMTALA compliance risk. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS), which manage EMTALA rules and regulations, require hospitals to maintain on-call policies and procedures to ensure complete on-call coverage.
Hospital fines, which are updated regularly, were $111,597 per EMTALA violation for hospitals with greater than 100 beds and $55,800 per EMTALA violation for hospitals with less than 100 beds in 2020.
