The planning tool: from implementation to operability

Implementation

The search for a software solution started with a public call for tenders. Only those software suppliers that could meet the specications were withheld. The nal decision criteria consisted for 30% of cost price. The decisive 70% were criteria like functionality, exibility, user-friendliness, completeness and conformity of the oered application software; technical aspects of hardware and system software; vision of the service provider regarding implementation; integration in the existing IT environment of the hospital; and training. Based on those criteria with the respective weights, SP-Expert was selected.

The initial purpose was to get SP-expert integrated completely by the end of 2009. However, at the end of 2011, only 25% of the workforce had already been put into the system. The supplier of the software apparently had insucient knowledge of the complexity of the organisation of the hospital, where especially the time registration caused problems because of the heavy load of rules. In October 2009, the hospital started a pilot of the software, but by December 2009, the hospital encountered a lot of problems about the software, which caused the shutdown of the pilot. The problems were however partly due to the hospital as well. There has never been put anything on paper about the whole planning process. For the switch to planning software, the whole procedure had to be written out. This resulted occasionally in change requests that had to be handled by the software provider.

Improvements through the planning tool

Before the use of SP-Expert, there were lists on which the employees needed to write their arrival and departure times. The responsible person needed to check the whole list, where even the leave of the employees was indicated. When the list was checked, it went to the personnel department, where the records were put in the system manually. As everything happened manually, the chance for many mistakes was big and there was a lot of time loss. Furthermore, the personnel department was running behind for about three months with checking the lists. For the planning of the annual leave, there used to be a thick book where every employee could write down at the beginning of the year their preferences for their annual leave.

With the new system, people get an actual online image which is directly linked to the salary system and where the leave entitlements are calculated automatically, as well as the reduction

of working hours. This oers 100% reliable information. It provides an easier way to check understang and overstang. Furthermore, the system gives an alert when there is a rule violation. All of this makes the job of the planner a lot easier. The web terminal is an enormous improvement as well, both for the employees as for the planner.

The planning crew size is still the same as before the software implementation. There is however another way of planning which delivers a lot of time savings. The planning itself happens decentralised in the dierent wards, so there still needs to be a planner for every ward. However, there is a shift in the personnel department. This department consists of ve FTE's, who are relieved from the task of manual input and output of data. During the implementation of the software, the department is responsible for a smooth switch to the new way of planning, but once the implementation is nished, it is only left with the task to control the data of the dierent planners. The purpose in time should therefore be to cut the size of this department in half. Shortcomings of the planning tool

The major criticism on SP-Expert is that it is too much a registration system and does not oer solutions. As explained in the section of the planning process (cf. supra), the roster generation is done manually by the planner. SP-Expert does not give automatic suggestions of who will work when and where. It is up to the planner to simulate scenarios to nd a new roster. The automatic roster generation does happen in the workplace planning module. This module however is not used for the nurses. The hospital has a license for only 10 per cent of their total workforce for this. Within this system, values are assigned to the employee for certain places. The values range from 0 to 100 and indicate how well suited someone is to work in that place. The scores can be adjusted at any time. For instance, when someone has worked for three months in the same place, his score for that place can be set to zero. This way, job rotation is supported to keep the employees motivated. The workforce planning module provides optimisation too: the total score for all working spots needs to be maximised.

There is a problem with the reporting database as well. The software itself runs on an Oracle database, but the web terminal generates reports via Microsoft Access, where the data limit is 2 GB. All the data thus needs to be exported to the Access database, while there is not enough capacity. The problem occurs particularly with the leave cards for which the 2 GB limit is insucient. In the short term, they can limit the periods exported to Access, but eventually another database needs to be found. As the reporting was a specication requirement in the

project scope, it is the responsibility of the supplier to nd a good solution. The implementer of SP-Expert is currently working on an MS SQL database that should solve the problem. The problem is probably caused because the web terminal is a quite recent module and is still in its infancy.