Scheduling nurses for the healthcare industry and staffing agencies can be a complex and challenging task due to a variety of factors. Nurse scheduling software can offer immense benefits in terms of saving time and costs when scheduling nurses.

Why PARiM offers the best nurse scheduling software? We'll take a look at some of the key issues present in the healthcare staffing industry that can be easily overcome when using PARiM Healthcare Scheduling Software for nurses.

1. Creating Complex Shift Patterns

One of the most challenging problems healthcare providers face is the complex shift patterns required for nurse scheduling. Many manage this issue with manual nurse scheduling systems that are very time-consuming. Alternatively, you can look for employee shift scheduling software solutions for automation. But the latter may not be able to provide advanced nurse scheduling options, such as 4 on 4 off or provide a user interface for night shifts.

PARiM provides the best nurse scheduling software to overcome this issue. You can create advanced shift patterns, such as weekly, on/off, and day of the month. Each pattern can be assigned to a specific employee or alternatively published as open shifts for temporary employees with matching qualifications to apply to these shifts from their mobile app. Additionally, PARiM provides a 2-day view as a better interface for night shifts.

2. Communication

Communication between nursing managers, staff and clients can be a tedious and time-consuming process, involving back-and-forth calls or text messages when the slightest change occurs to the schedules.

You can avoid this process altogether when using the PARiM app with separate views for managers, staff members and client representatives. Send out customised automated in-app notifications, emails and text messages to instantly update all parties about scheduling updates.

Communicating with Staff

Staff members can set their availabilities and submit time off requests from the app. These will be instantly received by managers who can approve these from their desktop or mobile environment. As a result, managing holidays and absences will be exceptionally quick and easy

The app also works as self-scheduling software – nursing staff will receive notifications of open shifts for which they can immediately apply from the app. This automated scheduling process reduces the number of administrative tasks necessary for schedule management.

Communicating with Clients

Staffing companies must keep their clients updated if there are any changes in personnel or schedules to ensure healthcare facilities can provide the best patient care. Thus real-time communication becomes essential for client retention, especially when managing a large-scale staffing company.

PARiM Client Portal is a vendor management system or VMS for hospitals to manage their staffing providers. Client representatives will have instant notifications to their Client Access App about new open shifts, changes in personnel or shift swaps. You can also provide clients with the option to approve timesheets for an even smoother payroll process.

3. Managing Staffing Shortages

One of the biggest challenges of scheduling nurses is the ongoing nursing shortage, which has been a long-standing issue in the healthcare industry. The shortage of nurses means that there are often not enough qualified nurses to fill all the shifts needed, which can result in increased workloads, burnout, and reduced job satisfaction.

Competitive Salaries and Profitable Operations

It is crucial for healthcare staffing organisations to provide nurses with competitive salaries while remaining profitable as a company. By reducing unnecessary management work and administrative tasks with effective staff scheduling software, you will have more resources to invest in your employees.

PARiM Nurse Scheduling Software provides your scheduling process with the unique Pay & Charge feature for overseeing operational costs. You can create custom or automated pay rates for each position and charge rates to bill your clients accordingly. Timesheets can be easily exported to the payroll software, and there is no risk of any manual errors.

Unlimited Staff Members in One Database

Competitive salaries make a great foundation for employee retention and recruitment. But as your healthcare staff continues to grow, it is important to make sure that your nurse scheduling software cost supports this kind of scaling.

Most online nurse scheduling software solutions provide a per-user-based pricing model, which can ramp up costs quickly while increasing the staff pool, increasing risks as you quickly need to find shifts for new employees.

PARiM Employee Scheduling Software offers a no-per-user based pricing model for a risk-free way to scale your organisation and pay for actual scheduled hours instead of unscheduled staff. You have an unlimited staff database for adding as many employees and temporary workforce members as needed and turning your attention to other business-critical tasks.

4. Variable Patient Needs

Patients have different medical conditions, and this can make it difficult to ensure that the right mix of nursing staff is available at all times. To overcome this challenge, the healthcare industry and staffing agencies must carefully assess patient needs and allocate staff accordingly. This may require adjusting schedules to ensure that the appropriate number of nurses with the required skills and expertise are available during specific shifts.

PARiM allows you to create custom positions for patients with particular healthcare needs. Nurses with qualifications to manage these can be assigned matching positions. This makes it exceptionally easy to have an overview of specific situations and schedule nurses quickly to ensure that patient care is up to standard.

4. Shift Preferences and Availability

Scheduling nurses involves working with nurses who have different shift preferences and availability. This can make it challenging to create schedules that work for everyone. They may also need to work with nurses to identify their availability to ensure that schedules are tailored to meet their needs.

PARiM Hospital Scheduling Software healthcare professionals with a scheduling app to set their availabilities and absences as a way of self-scheduling holidays. Nursing managers will see this information instantly and can offer shift swaps.

5. Compliance with Regulations

The healthcare industry and staffing agencies must comply with labour laws and union contracts when scheduling nurses. To overcome this challenge, the healthcare industry and staffing agencies need to ensure that they have a clear understanding of relevant regulations and that their scheduling practices comply with these regulations.

A good healthcare scheduling software must provide the functionality to ensure compliance with working time rules. PARiM compliance functionality provides the option to create custom rulesets to match your local legislation for ensuring compliance with evermore complex labour laws.

6. Balancing Workload

Scheduling nurses involves balancing workloads so that employees are not overworked or underworked, which can affect patient care and nurse satisfaction. The healthcare industry and staffing agencies must monitor workloads and adjust schedules to ensure fair distribution.

As nurse schedules are based on complex shift patterns, a typical calendar view can be difficult to follow when overviewing workload allocation. PARiM gives you the tools to manage this with Timesheet Summary. You view custom time periods, such as ongoing weeks or months, to have a quick understanding of the exact number of hours each of your employees has worked.

How Has the Industry Benefitted?

Before switching to PARiM, Leeds-based Starcover did all its communications manually. They are now using PARiM mobile app for streamlined communication and cite staff availability management as a key piece of the puzzle that was previously missing.

Interim HealthCare Minneapolis is one of the largest healthcare staffing companies. As an organisation of that scale, their work consists of full-time scheduling jobs. With PARiM, Interim has increased its productivity by 50%.

How to Get Started?

Create an account and get started with PARiM Free Trial.
Book a demo to have our experts personally guide you through the features.
Create nurse profiles with specific positions and qualifications.
Provide your nurses and clients with the PARiM app from Google Play or App Store.
Create advanced shift patterns and schedule nurses.
Manage availability and absences.

Finding the Best Nursing Scheduling Software