Massachusetts General Hospital Uses Aurora Software

Massachusetts General Hospital uses Aurora software to schedule clinical rotations, on-call shifts, and clinic hours for its medical residency program. The Aurora software solution has reduced the time and effort needed to generate efficient schedules that support the hospital’s complex staffing needs and comply with complex and changing rules and constraints.

As the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, Mass General offers residency programs in more than a dozen clinical departments and interdisciplinary areas. Currently, Aurora supports the hospital’s Internal Medicine residency program. Scheduling these residents is complex and labor-intensive because the schedules must satisfy the hospital’s staffing requirements, special requests, and clinical rotation rules to ensure that residents receive appropriate experiences.

The scheduling process has three phases. First, a rotation schedule is generated that assigns residents to rotation assignments based on their track and year of residency. Next, call schedules are produced that ensure each rotation has appropriate residents on call at all times without overburdening any residents. Finally, clinic schedules are generated that satisfy the rotation rules and requirements while avoiding conflicts with each resident’s call schedule.

Previously, it took highly skilled schedulers an enormous amount of time to generate a high-quality, equitable schedule that complies with all of the rules. Aurora now streamlines the three-phase scheduling process by producing clinical rotation schedules, call schedules, and conflict-free clinic schedules. This automation enables the hospital to reschedule their residents quickly and efficiently while satisfying staffing requirements, constraints, and guidelines. Aurora’s flexible intelligence allows them to accurately model and revise their numerous constraints as staffing rules change from year to year.