Heartsalive

Scheduling in the CCL can be a real problem for those of us who "have a life" outside the hospital. Our physicians run between their offices and the CCL all day long. Here's what we "try" to do. No routine cases are scheduled past 4 p.m. Cases may be added on "to follow" the last case of the day if, and only if, the patient is an inpatient. You seem to have a decent volume, so perhaps if you have down time waiting on physicians, you may benefit from staggered 8 hour shifts or 10-12 hour shifts to cover the later cases. Your staff would get an extra day or two off during the week, which most would like, especially if you guys are already working 14 hours in a routine day. At 4 p.m. our call team takes over, which leaves only 3 staff members in the lab, so if cases are scheduled beyond that, turnover stinks and the physicians hate it. The physicians also have lives and don't want to be in the lab doing a routine cath, or even worse, a complicated intervention at 9 p.m.--they get paid the same. We are the ones who get the overtime.