Phoenix Residence Patients Receive the Care They Need With Help from TimeSimplicity

The Phoenix Residence sought to deliver the best care possible by transitioning to a holistic scheduling approach. TimeSimplicity reduced weekly scheduling time for each home while ensuring residence receive the 24/7 care they need and deserve.

“Now that we have used TimeSimplicity for a while, we can’t imagine how we managed our scheduling before. TimeSimplicity is a great fit for small- and medium-sized company like The Phoenix Residence.”

Challenge

The Phoenix Residence is a non-profit organization located in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area of Minnesota. The organization’s mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of adults with disabilities. Phoenix cares for individuals in 19 six-bedroom homes located in communities that are near family members and friends so patients they can participate in and contribute to their communities. The homes also enable well-trained professionals to provide needed care 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

Because the homes are spread across a large metropolitan area and need to be staffed with the right combination of specialized full- and part-time professionals, scheduling workers is an ongoing challenge. To handle this important process, Phoenix used a software solution that allowed each home to handle is own scheduling. While this approached worked well for a while, it caused some duplication of work and made it difficult to leverage all of the available resources to fill open shifts.

As The Phoenix Residence expanded, it wanted to manage scheduling across all of its homes, while still allowing each home’s staff to be a key part of the process. “We reached the point where our scheduling goals outgrew our initial solution,” said Alan Berner, Vice President of Community Services for The Phoenix Residence. “We are always looking for ways to improve the quality of life for the people we serve and knew that a blended scheduling approach would ensure each home was fully staffed.”

Solution

After discovering TimeSimplicity, SwipeClock’s advanced scheduling solution, at a local technology conference, The Phoenix Residence compared it to other potential solutions. “TimeSimplicity stood out from the other solutions. It was easy to use and provided the advanced features and flexibility we needed to manage our scheduling from a holistic perspective—all at a price that was similar to the solution we were replacing,” said Berner.

TimeSimplicity is now being used at each home and managed overall by The Phoenix Residence’s scheduling and volunteer coordinator, who also led the roll out process. “We implemented TimeSimplicity three homes at a time by training the scheduling managers so they would know how to use the new software and scheduling process,” said Cassandra Linnell, Scheduling and Volunteer Coordinator for The Phoenix Residence. “Because TimeSimplicity is so easy to use, the training went very smoothly.”

TimeSimplicity also allows the coordinator to see who is available to work and rank them by their preferred shifts. This has resulted in initial schedules with significantly fewer open shifts and happier workers.

TimeSimplicity also saves time by having to find fewer workers to fill open shifts. “With TimeSimplicity, hours are covered faster than ever before,” concluded Berner. “Now that we have used TimeSimplicity for a while, we can’t imagine how we managed our scheduling before. TimeSimplicity is a great fit for small- and medium-sized company like The Phoenix Residence.”

Results

With TimeSimplicity, The Phoenix Residence now has the advanced features it needs to get an overall view of the scheduling process. The scheduling and volunteer coordinators can see the staffing plans for each home. When a home scheduling manager needs help, the coordinator can find the just the right staff using “best fit” identifiers based on employee profiles to fill the open shifts, ensuring that each home is fully covered. This ensures patients receive the care they need.

By having the overall coordinator work with the individual home scheduling managers, Phoenix has greatly reduced the 40 hours per week it took to schedule each home. “When you take into account that we have 19 homes, the overall time savings is significant,” said Linnell.

See it in Action

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