"We chose CareWare because it was clear that the technology powering the CareWare approach to rostering was above and beyond any technology that existed on the market. Care Systems seemed to understand the challenge of rostering and offered manager incredible tools to handle this challenge."

Rachel Willingham Professional Development Senior Sister Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trus

Business
Homerton University Hospital in East London is an “acute” hospital, offering treatment and therapy for patients recuperating from severe or acute illness or injury. Homerton provides general hospital services and specialist care in obstetrics and neonatology, fetal medicine and neurorehabilitation. It is one of England’s first National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trusts, providing services for NHS patients.

Goal
In 2005-06, Homerton cared for 40,000 inpatients and saw more than 100,000 in its emergency department. Its nursing workforce of around 850 people has to be optimally scheduled to ensure effective coverage, high-quality patient care and staff satisfaction. With 24-hour emergency services and just over 400 beds, the hospital has to be staffed around the clock. Work shifts have to be allocated equitably, making sure there are enough nurses with the right skills to meet the needs of the patients.

Application
Homerton properly staffs its shifts with CareWare Staff Schedule Optimizer, a hospital rostering system created with ILOG CPLEX, from Care Systems, Inc., a division of Planmatics, Inc. The staffing requirements of each shift are entered into the system along with special scheduling requests and shift preferences from the staff.

Results
CareWare generates an employee roster in just minutes that ensures shifts are properly staffed with enough personnel and the right skill sets. CareWare has ensured that nursing resources are effectively utilized. This has significantly reduced the need for temporary staff. The hospital spends an average of £100,000 less per month on temporary staff since introducing CareWare. ILOG CPLEX serves as the solver in CareWare, handling the complex calculations used to generate the schedules.

CareWare has proven easy to use, and Homerton’s personnel like having the roster on the computer, where they can reach it easily. When an unexpected staffing problem arises, like a sick employee, transit strike or holiday, CareWare uses the resulting parameters to generate a new schedule in minutes. Overall, Homerton’s employees are quite satisfied with the new system. The hospital even uses it as a selling point in recruiting new staff.

Technical
ILOG CPLEX, the world’s leading mathematical programming technology, does most of the optimization work, while ILOG Constraint Programming (CP) handles the especially tough problems. ILOG Views is used to display course timetables in an interactive graphical environment that allows the university’s planners to fine-tune schedules on screen.