Physician satisfaction with a multi-platform digital scheduling system.
OBJECTIVE
Physician shift schedules are regularly created manually, using paper or a shared online spreadsheet. Mistakes are not unusual, leading to last minute scrambles to cover a shift. We developed a web-based shift scheduling system and a mobile application tool to facilitate both the monthly scheduling and shift exchanges between physicians. The primary objective was to compare physician satisfaction before and after the mobile application implementation.


METHODS
Over a 9-month period, three surveys, using the 4-point Likert type scale were performed to assess the physician satisfaction. The first survey was conducted three months prior mobile application release, a second survey three months after implementation and the last survey six months after.


RESULTS
51 (77%) of the physicians answered the baseline survey. Of those, 32 (63%) were males with a mean age of 37.8 ± 5.5 years. Prior to the mobile application implementation, 36 (70%) of the responders were using more than one method to carry out shift exchanges and only 20 (40%) were using the official department report sheet to document shift exchanges. The second and third survey were answered by 48 (73%) physicians. Forty-eight (98%) of them found the mobile application easy or very easy to install and 47 (96%) did not want to go back to the previous method. Regarding physician satisfaction, at baseline 37% of the physicians were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with shift scheduling. After the mobile application was implementation, only 4% reported being unsatisfied (OR = 0.11, p < 0.001). The satisfaction level improved from 63% to 96% between the first and the last survey. Satisfaction levels significantly increased between the three time points (OR = 13.33, p < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Our web and mobile phone-based scheduling system resulted in better physician satisfaction.
Critical Care Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.|Innovation Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.|Laboratory of Computational Physiology, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Rodrigo Octávio
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1869-8828
RO
Deliberato
Critical Care Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
Leonardo Lima
LL
Rocha
Innovation Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
Alex Heitor
AH
Lima
Critical Care Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
Caroline Reis Maia
CR
Santiago
Innovation Department, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
Jose Cláudio Cyrineu
JC
Terra
Laboratory of Computational Physiology, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.|Department of Emergency Medicine. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Alon
A
Dagan
Laboratory of Computational Physiology, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.|Department of Medicine. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Leo Anthony
LA
Celi
D000328:Adult; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063731:Mobile Applications; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*