Efficiency Redefined: A Hospital’s Journey with Planisy

On the 23rd of August 2023, we were honoured to participate in a webinar hosted by the digital health center Bülach (dhc) to showcase how Planisy revolutionises planning and optimises resource allocation in healthcare. The event, “Innovative And Efficient Multi-Resource Management In Hospitals”  featured a practical example from the Kantonsspital Winterthur, a leading and highly specialised Swiss hospital that has actively benefited from utilising Planisy.

In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, efficient resource management is crucial for providing timely and quality care to patients. This was the core theme explored by the webinar participants and a strong conviction of ours at Planisy.

During the event, Professor Daniel Zwahlen, Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology and Deputy Head of the Winterthur Tumour Centre, outlined that the Kantonsspital Winterthur treats around 2,500 patients annually and explained the unique challenges faced by the hospital staff and administration. They operate in a competitive market, aiming to provide access to therapy within days and never making a patient wait for more than a week. To do so, the hospital needs to efficiently manage a skilled workforce, specialised treatment rooms, and a significant amount of expensive equipment, which they cannot afford to have idle. These complexities led to constant planning challenges and difficulties in keeping track of resource allocation, making their previous reliance on spreadsheets and other tools inefficient and outdated.

The Hospital had already started its journey to digital transformation and had gone paperless, upgrading to digital systems. However, working from spreadsheets and similar tools still limits accessibility, tying personnel to desks and making fast adjustments to scheduling (crucial within a hospital environment) cumbersome. To fully enhance operations and achieve patient care goals, they needed their technology solution to be interactive and ubiquitous.

The Kantonsspital Winterthur was one of Planisy’s early clients. It was initially introduced to schedule doctors and rooms, providing a much improved usability level than previously used tools and methods. They then extended its operational scope to include machines, particularly to optimise the usage of costly radiation therapy equipment, which was a vital objective. Following that, the hospital added tasks, nurses, and instruments. Touch screens have been implemented throughout the campus to allow staff to access Planisy at their convenience.

Dr Zwahlen confirmed, “With Planisy, the scheduling team can best optimise the usage of all our resources, whether they are human resources, machines, locations, physical, or digital. What used to be a stressful activity with constant last-minute changes that were difficult to manage and communicate became a simple, fast, and, above all, accurate process. The ability to adapt on the fly to last-minute changes is instrumental in a hospital.”

The staff found Planisy’s features particularly effective. Violations of scheduling rules became immediately visible, thanks to the colour-coded visual feedback that indicates the status of allocations, and giving the ability to quick fix, thanks to the system’s interactivity. The touch screens displaying real-time information throughout the hospital significantly improved accessibility for staff.

Dr Zwahlen stated, “Planisy has made the life of the whole team easier, everyone being able to know from anywhere and at any time, to what and where they have been assigned to, and quickly check what resources have been reserved for them. They can interact with all this information in the most intuitive way possible, on any digital device.”

This transparency eliminated internal conflicts that impacted workplace culture, and rescheduling became simple instead of a source of stress for personnel.

With support from the Kantonsspital Winterthur IT team, everyone in the hospital, from doctors to administrators, found Planisy easy to use and integral to their daily routines. It became as routine as checking emails in the morning.

In summary, with Planisy, the hospital didn’t have to make a complex transformation; Planisy simply optimised and eliminated the daily stresses and inefficiencies surrounding planning and scheduling. The cost-benefit ratio was impressive, and the hospital staff could finally focus better on their core responsibilities -providing excellent patient care.

Dr Zwahlen explained, “Since we’ve introduced Planisy, the overall capacity management of the department is fully optimised. To put it simply, the pressure on resources has decreased, and discussions around investments in resources have become easier, thanks to this new tool.”

The success story of this hospital serves as a testimony to the power of innovative resource management tools like Planisy in healthcare. As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, efficient resource allocation will remain at the forefront of delivering top-notch patient care. With Planisy, hospitals can rise to the challenge and ensure that their resources are utilised optimally, benefiting both patients and staff.