Lightning Bolt Solutions
Lightning Bolt is allowing doctors and busy administrators to focus on what they do best—improve the quality of patient care—without the distraction of solving the massive ten-dimensional scheduling Sudoku puzzle on a monthly basis.
Burlingame, CA (PRWEB) April 07, 2015
Lightning Bolt Solutions, based in Burlingame, Calif., has introduced the Enterprise edition of its physician scheduling software. Recent deployments, including a large integrated delivery network (IDN) scheduling over 5,000 providers and back office staff, have positioned Lightning Bolt as the leader in physician scheduling for the Enterprise. The unique configurability of Lightning Bolt’s web-based system allows it to scale in performance to meet complex scheduling needs, reducing a scheduling physician or administrator’s time spent scheduling by up to 90 percent and increasing an organization’s provider retention and utilization.
The underlying architecture of Lightning Bolt’s system ultimately ensures the right physician is in the right place at the right time. The system was originally modeled after algorithms derived from technology used to schedule supercomputers, a model many of Lightning Bolt’s competitors still use today. In 2007, however, Lightning Bolt introduced a new system that generates optimal schedules through patent-pending technology that utilizes a process known as combinatorial optimization, a mathematical principle often applied to complex processes associated with the airline and manufacturing industries, among others. This cutting edge innovation allows the system to consider at one time all the moving parts that comprise a schedule in order to optimally map resources across departments and across the enterprise.
“In other industries such as the manufacturing and airline industries, a team of operations research engineers is dedicated to solving the challenges in scheduling and planning resources,” said Suvas Vajracharya, CEO of Lightning Bolt Solutions.
Vajracharya continued, “In healthcare, the responsibility of scheduling the most valuable resource falls upon a doctor or a busy practice manager. The result is often sub-optimal schedules that result in physician burnout or poor utilization. Lightning Bolt is allowing doctors and busy administrators to focus on what they do best—improve the quality of patient care—without the distraction of solving the massive ten-dimensional scheduling Sudoku puzzle on a monthly basis.”
Lightning Bolt is currently deployed at universities, IDNs, multi-disciplinary clinics and hospitals. iNDIGO Health Partners, a private hospitalist specialty group, schedules over 100 providers across seven programs and six hospitals. For such specialty groups in enterprise-wide deployments, Lightning Bolt streamlines the entire scheduling process by managing time-off requests, swaps, and changes to the schedule; building daily and on-call schedules; and displaying a centralized, enterprise-wide call schedule that allows for quick contact lookup and communication with the provider on-call. Enterprise clients use Lightning Bolt analytics on the resulting schedule data to generate reports for payroll, productivity, equity or fairness, and utilization.
The configurability of Lightning Bolt’s software allows enterprise clients such as iNDIGO to optimally align with individual provider needs and preferences, including varying FTEs, variable productivity, and evolving definitions of work-life balance. iNDIGO discovered physicians with optimal schedules are more willing to work extra shifts because of their ability to maintain a schedule compatible with their lives and needs.
Before implementing the scheduling software in 2008, iNDIGO was much like an estimated 70 percent of Lightning Bolt’s clients who rely on FTE physicians to manage scheduling. iNDIGO’s dedicated scheduling physician logged 1,027 hours managing the group’s schedule in the year prior to Lightning Bolt implementation. Lightning Bolt’s guarantee to reduce time spent scheduling by up to 90 percent would have equaled more than 924 hours returned to patient care for iNDIGO’s FTE scheduling physician in the year prior to implementation. In 2013, iNDIGO internally generated the equivalent of more than five extra FTEs through increased provider utilization. iNDIGO saw an increased provider retention rate of 97.6 percent to a national average of 89.4 percent in the first five years after Lightning Bolt implementation.
Note: Lightning Bolt Solutions will feature the Enterprise edition of its scheduling software at the HIMSS15 health care IT conference April 12 – 16 in Chicago, Ill. Lightning Bolt’s CEO and other representatives will be available at Booth #6657 during exhibit hours offering free software demonstrations.
Availability
The Enterprise edition of Lightning Bolt’s scheduling software is available for deployment now. Free product demonstrations are available upon request.
About Lightning Bolt Solutions, Inc.
Lightning Bolt Solutions is the leading provider of medical staff scheduling software and solutions. Founded in 2002, Lightning Bolt Solutions has developed deep domain expertise in the area of medical staff scheduling. Lightning Bolt’s web-based physician scheduling software is used by thousands of physicians across a variety of specialties and practices, including radiology, OB/GYN, anesthesiology, cardiology, hospital medicine and emergency medicine in multi-disciplinary clinics, hospitals, universities and large IDNs.
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Name: John Radewagen
Company: RedWagen Communications
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