Physician Scheduler^®
Customer Success Stories

Connecticut’s Largest Private Radiology Group Relies on Physician Scheduler to Meet Demands of Growing Practice

Jefferson Radiology finds flexible, customizable solution to complex, multi-site, multiple sub-specialty requirements.

As the largest private radiology practice in Connecticut–with more than 400 physicians, technicians and administrative staff serving its nine offices and five area hospitals–Jefferson Radiology faces highly complex physician and staff scheduling requirements every day. The Hartford, Conn.-based medical group knows, however, that regardless of the multi-site, sub-specialty and skill-specific coverage need, it has a proven solution: Physician Scheduler software.

“Given the number of physicians and staff we have, the number of office sites and hospitals we serve, and the varying types of radiology procedures we offer at different locations on different days of the week, it’s critical that we have a highly flexible, customizable scheduling software solution,” says Jeffrey Meehan, the group’s workflow coordinator. “With Physician Scheduler, I know that no matter how complex or intricate the scheduling demand or scenario, I can get it done. The power and flexibility of the software give me that capability.”

The flexibility to accommodate multi-site, sub-specialty and skill-specific coverage requirements

To meet the care and procedure needs of its widespread patient population, Jefferson Radiology must synchronize schedules so that the appropriate type and number of sub-specialty physicians and support staff members are available at each designated care site, on the precise day of the week. Each office site provides a different mix of procedures that change according to the day of the week, and to perform a procedure, each radiologist at Jefferson must have the requisite skill set.

For example, at its Farmington office, Jefferson Radiology provides both mammography-specific services as well as interventional radiological services. These two, different disciplines require the practice to have five doctors on site, four that are available all day and one that floats between the office and Hartford Hospital.

The group must specify which two doctors specialize in mammography and, of those two, which one reads the screening work and which one performs the procedures. The practice also must determine which of its two interventional radiological doctors is handling vein-specific work and which is performing low-level, outpatient procedures in the office. In addition, one physician provides office consulting and the other handles the procedures.

“With Physician Scheduler, I can build multiple staffing lists precisely linked with multiple assignments and locations so we know we’ll have the right radiologist at the right facility on the right day,” says Meehan. “Because of the Physician Scheduler’s integrated links and blocks, staffing rules and limits, and ability to create specific staffing groups for each day of the week, it’s very easy to let the software’s automation do all the work.”

Physician Scheduler’s scheduling power and adaptability delivers invaluable peace of mind, Meehan says. “To know that I can go into Physician Scheduler and customize it to address any scheduling and workflow change we experience is invaluable. It has the unique capability to do whatever we need to do, whenever we need it done.”

The scalability to address practice growth, schedule technical and administrative staff

Physician Scheduler’s scalable, enterprise-wide design has enabled Jefferson Radiology to seamlessly accommodate rapid practice expansion and expand utilization of its automated scheduling technology to the group’s radiology technicians and administrative staff. “Since I started using the software in November, 2005, our practice has almost doubled in size,” Meehan indicates. “And this growth is continuing. We’re planning to add a fifth hospital in September and a sixth hospital in January of next year to the list of hospitals we serve. As our physical footprint has grown and we’ve increased the number of detailed radiological procedures at each site, it’s been critical that we’ve had – and continue to have – the ability to handle all these specialized, sub-specialty assignments and process them automatically.”

Physician Scheduler’s scalable rules engine can incorporate an unlimited number of assignments that can be linked to an infinite number of rules and subsets of rules. “You can add to this system all day long,” Meehan says.

To broaden the value of the software and obtain more comprehensive staffing capabilities, Jefferson Radiology schedules all of its radiology technicians and administrative staff with Physician Scheduler. “It’s essential for staffing effectiveness and simplicity’s sake to have one product that can schedule all of our people,” emphasizes Meehan. “After all, to provide the quality radiology care we do, we need to ensure the scheduling accuracy of our technical and administrative staff as well as our physicians. You have to have the right number and type of technicians to assist our physicians, and the right admitters and front office people to deliver the best patient care experience.”

Real-time schedule access and interactive communication tools support efficient practice management and staff satisfaction

Providing caregivers with timely, individualized schedules and intra-practice communication is vital to promoting effective practice management and physician and staff satisfaction. Through personalized Web portals, Physician Scheduler enables physicians and staff at Jefferson Radiology to stay apprised of real-time schedules and assignment changes, and respond to important messages and alerts. An online request feature facilitates convenient request submissions with denial and approval confirmations for time off and vacations.

“Our physicians and staff are very pleased with the software,” reports Meehan. “They like that they each have an individualized dashboard that makes it very easy and clear to gain the scheduling data and assignments directly relevant to them. It’s like one-stop shopping. Everything they need to see is right there in front of them.”

To enhance service and deliver even more immediate information distribution and access, Jefferson Radiology will soon offer real-time, automated email notifications of schedule changes and updates to physicians’ handhelds and smart phones. “Our physicians are really excited about this,” says Meehan. “We will be putting their schedules on their email calendars so they can upload them to their handhelds. This, along with real-time email notifications of schedule changes and request confirmations, will keep them informed of all scheduling issues anywhere and at any time…. everywhere they go.”

Another feature Meehan says he plans to integrate into physician dashboards is the shift-swap component. “We plan to offer call swaps through the dashboard connectivity so that our radiologists don’t have to make phone calls and deal with the hassles of tracking someone down. Through the Web they can initiate a call assignment swap with a colleague. Once I approve it, the software will automatically integrate the change into the schedule.”

Jefferson Radiology continually investigates new ways to improve access to and the value of the real-time scheduling data it gains through Physician Scheduler. The group’s central scheduling office uses the software to immediately locate and contact physicians wherever they may be among the various offices and hospitals.

“Our central scheduling office often receives calls to locate a particular radiologist,” Meehan explains. “Because all schedules are in the system in real time, the office staff can quickly find and contact the physician. This saves a great deal of time. There’s no time-demanding manual searching and phone calling. For a practice as big as ours, it’s critical that we have the ability to do things quickly.”

The group also provides its external call service with access to Physician Scheduler. “Our physician call service also needs access to our radiologists’ real-time schedules so they can contact them in a timely and reliable manner,” Meehan says. “The automatic email distribution feature that will be implemented will be particularly valuable as call service personnel will be instantly notified of physician schedule changes.”

Comprehensive reporting capabilities improve decision-making and benchmarking

Physician Scheduler captures the comprehensive scheduling and staffing data to generate an extensive array of reports on physician and staff productivity, workflow trends, vacation, time-off and other factors. “I definitely use the system for productivity reporting,” Meehan points out. “I work with our CFO to track each physician’s hours worked and time off so the information can be presented to our board. For example, we examine our productivity data to compare it to national averages, and can run reports for any time period. I also run custom reports for physicians pertaining to their time-off and vacation requests.”

Customer-driven software development and service ensures ongoing product enhancement and increased value to customers

To provide ongoing product performance and value to its customers in a changing, competitive healthcare marketplace, today’s software companies must constantly improve and refine their products. Meehan says that Clairvia’s commitment to continual software development and innovation is evident in its highly responsive approach to the needs and expectations of its customers. “Many of the improvements and new features added to Physician Scheduler over the years were the result of Clairvia actively listening and responding to our product enhancement requests,” he says.

An example occurred in 2007, Meehan recalls, when he attended a Physician Scheduler user group at the Clairvia headquarters to submit Jefferson Radiology’s list of requested product enhancements. “When the new upgrade came out, we ended up getting 13 of our 15 enhancement requests integrated into Physician Scheduler. That’s pretty strong proof of a company that really listens and responds to its customers.”

“Clairvia’s team of software engineers and customer service staff work closely with the practice to ensure ongoing product support and well-planned application upgrades,” says Mark Weathersbee, Jefferson Radiology’s senior director of Special Projects.

“Clairvia has always provided very good support over the years for our physician and staff scheduling software,” Weathersbee relates. “We plan our upgrades with the help of the Clairvia support staff, and then execute on a well-thought-out plan. We’ve had some challenging upgrades to our application over the years, in part because of the complexity of our scheduling and the degree to which we use the program, but the Clairvia engineers supporting us are right there, every step of the way.”

About Jefferson Radiology

Jefferson Radiology, established in 1963, is the largest radiology private practice group in Connecticut. The group has nine private offices in the central Connecticut area, located in Avon, Bloomfield, Enfield, Farmington, Glastonbury, Granby, Hartford, West Hartford, and Wethersfield. Jefferson Radiology also provides professional radiology services at Hartford Hospital, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Windham Hospital, Johnson Memorial Hospital and Tolland Imaging Center.

As a leader in diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology, Jefferson Radiology offers the full spectrum of diagnostic imaging and interventional services, including offer high field, open bore and open MRI, CT, ultrasound, mammography, nuclear medicine, fluoroscopy, general x-ray, and interventional radiology services.

All Jefferson Radiology physicians are board certified in diagnostic radiology with the following clinical areas of expertise:

• Body Imaging
• Breast Imaging
• Interventional and Vascular Radiology and Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Imaging
• Musculoskeletal Imaging
• Neuroradiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Neurointerventional Radiology
• Pediatric Imaging
• Pulmonary Imaging

For more information, visit www.jeffersonradiology.com

About Physician Scheduler

For more than 10 years, thousands of physicians across the country have relied on Physician Scheduler to automate the demanding, time-intensive task of creating an equitable schedule based on the complex rules of individual physician groups, while ensuring an equitable share of call and adequate coverage.

Physician Scheduler delivers:

• Rules-based automated scheduling according to each practice’s specifications
• Real-time decision-support tools to address last-minute changes
• Schedule access from anywhere over the Web
• Coverage optimization across multiple sites
• Complete enterprise-wide capability

Physician Scheduler is developed and marketed by Clairvia, which serves more than 1,200 healthcare organizations, medical facilities, nursing departments, and group practices with advanced software solutions for patient and staff management.

For more information on the complete range of healthcare software solutions from Clairvia, go to www.clairvia.com.