Electronic scheduling - Need some advice (Kronos/Cerner)

Nurses General Nursing

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Hey everyone,

I am a manager at a facility in sunny....well cloudy VA. We are FINALLY getting rid of the disaster that is cerner's scheduling system only to be forced to swallow Kronos. I don't know anything about Kronos other than that I hear that it's really cumbersome and hard to use. A friend at another facility says they are booting Kronos because it's hard to use and they simply don't support the product. I want to heard from everyone on how this is going to affect us.

I'll be honest, I hate Cerner, their EMR sucks and the scheduler if possible is worse. I have to admit that I saw all the pretty graphs originally and thought it was great but since that time I have seen the system to be useless and more importantly it LENGTHENS the time I spend on pretty much everything.

Problem: Our IT department is making the decision for us. Really?! Why would a department that has no direct patient care make the decision for us. They don't know how we schedule or what productivity information is important to me, my director, or our cno. Frustrating!

At my last facility we had Concerro and that wasn't that bad but it just took to long to do anything and their tech support was HORRIBLE. They ended up getting rid of that because of the API buyout and moved us to the disaster that was Shift Hound. We actually lost nurses because of the way they attempted to accomplish self-scheduling. What I need to know is, is Kronos any better? Why can't I get a system that works and is easy to use. It can't be that hard can it? Nursing schedules are pretty easy, not like the docs, they are all over the place!

Please, someone help!

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

any programmer can create a scheduling software, but the trick is to get it integrated with the time clock and HR or Education features. We keep time on Kronos but our scheduling is thru Concerro. I have no advise but hope you share what you learn with the rest of us

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Hello Jeff,

I'll be as helpful as I can. I have used many of the "heavy hitters" and a few small systems and have several opinions.

Kronos - This system is a halfway decent timeclock system. When they installed the scheduling system in our facility it was a nightmare. it never completely worked. We lost schedules every once in a while, I never understood that, where did they go?! We entered them didn't we? It took you on average of 10+ steps to do basically anything and every time we asked for a customized feature it was never fully addressed. I always thought we were simply brushed off. Kronos was not a win for us and despite the problems management kept them for 2 years, I heard that they replaced them recently though. Don't know who with, sorry.

Concerro - I only had a limited amount of use with this one. The system was sooooo much better than Kronos or Clarvia but still had problems of it being down often, or just not accessible and it being really hard to use. The system was trialed in my facility and within 3 months kicked out due to lack of staff usage. My department at the time used it for two schedules and then stopped using it.

Cerner - Their EMR is great. I thought it was extremely nice of them to do custom configuration for us several times. Often times it didn't work and had to be pulled back and fixed but when it was working it was very efficient. The scheduling system was a nightmare though.

I also used Shift Hound and found that the decision to use them was obviously made by IT because they purchased a system that couldn't do self scheduling. With an industry going to that type of system how can you pick something like that.

I don't agree with classicdame that anyone can create a software. I have no idea how to program but I know that an ED is complex and with all of the shifts my current hospital has there is no way someone can throw together something to use.

I hope this helps.

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I don't know if there is anything I can do about the process. IT must be in the pocket of someone at Kronos, I hear all the time of facilities uninstalling the scheduling system. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can short circuit this decision?

I know that going with some of the bigger companies is best but they don't seem to support the product. My friend said that Kronos was made for casinos, I love poker so that made me smile a bit but how can you compare the clinical environment with someone betting on black or red?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

YIKES - I feel your pain. My organization's policy is to require collaborative agreement on any software selection. The 'business owners' (people who will actually be using the darn stuff to do their job) make the choice, but it has to be approved by IT. IT has to make sure the new stuff will play well with the old stuff and all the other applications that we use; they have to conduct security tests to make sure that it protects our data; they have to stress test to make sure it can handle the load. . . and so on.

FWIW, KRONOS (and most other vendors) have various different products ranging from cheapo bare bones to the fancy-schmancy stuff. The problem is that buying the cheap stuff just shifts the burden so that the user has to make up the difference. The total cost of ownership for the high end stuff may actually be less due to the streamlining that it can support.

We have been happy with KRONOS for T & A, and there is a movement to purchase their scheduling system also. Good luck on your transition.

Feel free to vent here on AN - we totally understand.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

As a manager, I hated KRONOS.

I found it very cumbersome to deal with on a weekly basis.

There were ALWAYS a gazillion errors that had to be remedied and it took way too much of my time and attention, IMHO.

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We don't do self scheduling, but our schedules and timeclock are in Kronos.

I have never worked with any other software. I don't know how horrible or awesome it is.

I feel like I wasn't well trained in it, so there were a few things I didn't understand. I felt like there were some dual designations that I had to enter, particularly with employees who worked in more than one area or filled more than one position (for example, a staff RN who charged, or an aide who worked as a sitter for a shift).

Overall, it got the job done. I don't know how much individualization each organization receives. I think a lot of our issues were issues between accounting and clinical staff. For example, accounting wanted us to enter on call hours in the schedule in one manner; but this led to nursing supervisors not knowing the exact hours that someone was on call, and the on call staff not getting paid for hours if they didn't get called in. Those of us entering the schedule finally just entered it the way the supervisors liked it, and then had to go through and change it to the way the accountants liked it when we were double checking time cards for payroll. What a waste of man hours. However, was this an issue with Kronos, or how we implemented it? I have no clue.

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

We do our staff schedule through Optilink, and our time keeping through Kronos.

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I know that IT has to have their mitts on everything, I used to work in the IT field when I was younger but being in my current position I realize that IT should not make decisions solely without the involvement of the clinical side. Really, what does a IT geek know about patient care?

I have gone to my superiors and asked if we could be involved in the process. My VP says the decision isn't set so there may be time to get a committee together.

Now for the better question......what else is there? I know I don't want Kronos, just from what everyone has said they won't be a good fit. Cerner? NO! Concerro, I'll look into because I didn't have that much exposure and they must have improved upon it. Anything else? I did a search for the following, can anyone weigh in on these?

SmartSquare

ShiftWizard

ANSOS

BTW, thanks for the help everyone! This really has helped!!

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How is OptiLink?

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Yes, I heard the training for Kronos was lengthy and cumbersome but so far I haven't had the pleasure.

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I know that IT has to have their mitts on everything, I used to work in the IT field when I was younger but being in my current position I realize that IT should not make decisions solely without the involvement of the clinical side. Really, what does a IT geek know about patient care?

I have gone to my superiors and asked if we could be involved in the process. My VP says the decision isn't set so there may be time to get a committee together.

Now for the better question......what else is there? I know I don't want Kronos, just from what everyone has said they won't be a good fit. Cerner? NO! Concerro, I'll look into because I didn't have that much exposure and they must have improved upon it. Anything else? I did a search for the following, can anyone weigh in on these?

SmartSquare

ShiftWizard

ANSOS

BTW, thanks for the help everyone! This really has helped!!

I have worked in many facilities due to moving around a lot and have used lots of systems so I'll see if I can help out...

SmartSquare-That was used in my last facility in FL. It has a lot of bells and whistles which may be the reason no one used it. It was forced upon us and then just fizzled. The facility went to Concerro and THAT fizzled out due to everyone hating it. What can I say, they were hard to please, that was the reason me and a bunch of my fellow RNs left, either that or the fact that management didn't have a clue.

ShiftWizard-These guys I loved! I heard that everyone in the company were nurses which made it great for me. I thought that the system was really easy to use and while I was doing the scheduling for the department I never had one problem. From what I heard everyone liked it and it was used in the whole facility.

ANSOS-Garbage, very old! Come on, hospitals have the most up to date technology! Why do you have something made in the 1940s!

Kronos-It seemed ok, I never had a problem with it. at the point that I used this I was only staffing and not assisting with the schedule so I don't know what management used it for. It seemed ok to me

API/Concerro-My first scheduling coordinator job was with the use of API's scheduler. It wasn't that bad, the training was good, the system wasn't easy but after enough training I got to be pretty proficient. That and I loved my department. Sadly I moved with my boyfriend so had to move on.

I worked at Rex in Raleigh and was casual in several departments. The hospital didn't enforce Concerro so a lot of department didn't use the system. That made it ineffectual, my primary department wouldn't use it due to all the problems but my secondary department used it and said their director said that they needed something electronic.

My overall opinion is that in our complex world of staffing and patient care you need something to make a nurse's life easier. We need the control over our requests, and our schedules/pay. Each one of these systems is better than the excel sheets that my sister says she is forced to use.....Yea, even ANSOS (Well, maybe not). Jeff, if you can organize your staff and present to them how important a functional system is to your performance and the performance of your peers than you hopefully can shake things up.

I am continuing my schooling and I plan on writing a paper on "Scheduling vs. Management & Management WITH Staff" in the future. I have already done some research so when I force myself to organize everything I will share it. I hope I helped.

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