SAN DIEGO, June 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ABILITY^® Network, a leading information technology company, today announced the addition of Physician Scheduling to its ShiftHound suite of cloud-based workforce management products. The new application provides an interface and workflow designed specifically to simplify and optimize the unique challenges associated with scheduling physicians.

Physician scheduling is complicated, time-consuming and onerous for most organizations. Requirements of individual physician contracts – coupled with changing staffing needs to ensure quality of care – create layers of complexity. Providers end up managing this task through time-consuming manual processes such as spreadsheets, or are forced to turn to high-cost technology applications, which may be out of reach for most providers.

“Physician scheduling is uniquely complex, yet it is so critical to ensure quality of care and to support physician engagement,” said Ian Chaplin, VP of Workforce Management at ABILITY Network. “Providing a comprehensive, flexible, mobile, and affordable physician scheduling application builds on our proven clinical scheduling application and helps further simplify complexity for our customers.”

The ShiftHound Physician Scheduling application provides an intuitive user experience atop an intricate set of rules that makes physician scheduling simple. In doing so, the application:

• Eliminates the difficult task of tracking different types of commitments with varying associated timeframes such as number of shifts, on-call shifts, weekends, weekdays, PTO days, etc.;
• Allows unlimited physician-specific commitments and preferences to be stored within the system and enables draft schedules to be instantly auto-generated from a sophisticated library of commitment and preference rules;
• Enables schedulers to review draft schedules, make edits, approve or generate new drafts;
• Provides physicians with access to their schedules from mobile apps; and  
• Provides users with a home screen where they can view their schedule, track progress toward their individual commitments, access open shifts that qualify for helping them reach their commitments, designate availability and availability preferences, and sync their schedules to their own personal calendar.

When used together with ShiftHound Scheduler for staff scheduling, Physician Scheduler helps organizations gain an unprecedented ability to integrate, view, track and report on all aspects of scheduling from one source. Physician Scheduler can be used as a stand-alone product as well.

“Using ShiftHound Physician Scheduler, managers and staff gain back valuable time to do what they do best – provide quality care,” said Christian Willi, VP, Engineering for ABILITY Workforce Management applications. “Our simple-to-use interface, quick implementation time, and proven ability to deliver immediate ROI through cost savings, increased efficiencies, and better quality of life for employees, make this another valuable addition to the ShiftHound suite of workforce management solutions.”

For more information, please visit the ShiftHound Website or Request a Free Demo of ShiftHound.

About ABILITY^® Network

ABILITY Network is a leading information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare through innovative applications and data analytics. ABILITY is headquartered in Minneapolis with principal offices in Boston and Tampa.

ShiftHound, which was acquired by ABILITY Network in April 2017, is the leader in cloud-based Workforce Management solutions, including Attendance, Credentials Tracking, Staff Scheduling and Open Shift Management. Organizations in any business vertical with shift-based staffing needs use ShiftHound to improve scheduling effectiveness and operational efficiency while maximizing workforce utilization, assuring compliance with policies and/or labor contracts, addressing open shifts and better managing labor costs such as overtime and contract labor utilization.