Altoona Regional Health System Pennsylvania, United States
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"The CareWare nurse scheduler directly impacts the lives of patients, nurses and medical staff. The scheduling engine had to be fast, robust and reliable. The best mathematical programming software is ILOG CPLEX, and at the core of CareWare, it delivers the best scheduling solutions possible."

R. Thomas Zeek Director, Nursing Information Systems Altoona Regional Health System

Business
Altoona Regional Health System is the primary provider of medical services in central Pennsylvania. It includes the Home Health Agency, the medical practices of more than 300 physicians, and two hospitals with more than 500 licensed beds.

Goal
Scheduling staff at the hospitals was so complex, it was often described as a "nightmare." It was done centrally, with input from the different departments, and then revised at the department level to accommodate employees’ requests. This meant the main staffing office rarely had an accurate schedule for the employees, and overtime costs often got out of hand. Moreover, improper staffing put the quality of the hospitals’ medical care at risk. Adding to the complexity are clinical standards for care, union regulations on what employees can do and overtime compensation, and team requirements based on skills. Altoona Regional needed an efficient scheduling system that would meet the hospitals constraints.

Application
Care System's CareWare application has put an end to Altoona Regional's scheduling nightmare. Using ILOG CPLEX, the leading mathematical optimization product, CareWare generates solutions that meet most of the hospitals' constraints for mandated staffing levels, best practices, union rules and employee preferences. It assigns personnel fairly, with the objective of minimizing overtime and other costs while maximizing the quality of medical care.

Results
Care System's CareWare application has put an end to Altoona Regional’s scheduling nightmare. It assigns personnel fairly, with the objective of minimizing overtime and other costs while maximizing the quality of medical care. Both employees—who include more than 750 nurses—and patients have expressed greater satisfaction, and the main staffing office always has the most up-to-date schedules.

Technical
ILOG CPLEX, the world's leading mathematical programming technology, quickly solves complex business problems that are beyond the capabilities of the human brain or the modern spreadsheet.