Lufthansa Industry Solutions developed a modern self-service rostering system for the Heidelberg University Hospital. It enables staff members, management and human resources to plan efficiently, and increases flexibility.
The customer
The Heidelberg University Hospital is one of the largest medical centers in Germany with more than 12,700 employees (2014). The university’s medical faculty, which was founded in 1388, is one of the most internationally significant biomedical research facilities in Europe. Annually, roughly 64,000 inpatients are treated in more than 50 clinical departments at the University Hospital, accompanied by 1 million outpatient appointments.
The challenge
Each of the clinical departments has different processes for scheduling vacation, requesting shifts and the ensuing approval procedures. The introduction of a human resource scheduling system for doctors had already enabled some workflows to be standardized and centrally aligned. But routine tasks such as rostering were still cumbersome and time consuming.
It became clear that the introduction of self-services would create more potential for optimization, as self-services provide the flexibility to optimally include staff and management in the rostering process.
The solution
The Heidelberg University Hospital wanted to significantly increase staff involvement during rostering by utilizing self-services for employees and managers. Together with its implementation partner Lufthansa Industry Solutions, the University Hospital’s central IT department established a wide range of self-services during a multi-stage project and then rolled them out successively in each of the clinical departments between 2012 and 2014.
This solution was intended to create standards for all of the clinical departments and to significantly increase the efficiency of previous processes. Thanks to short development cycles, the system was able to be completed, delivered and tested in segments. As a result, staff and management were able to get a feel for the new self-service portal step by step. Project staff were also involved in the development of the navigation structure and the interface design. Since the project was completed in fall 2014, these self-services have been continuously expanded and optimized.
The customer benefit
The new self-service system has significantly increased staff involvement during rostering. Staff and management are now able to carry out tasks by themselves that used to be handled by the human resources department. They have access to the relevant numbers and forms at all times, and can maintain records and carry out analyses by themselves. Supervisor approval processes – for example for vacation scheduling – have been integrated and facilitate communication between staff members and their managers.
In addition to this, the self-service system improves data quality and company transparency and reduces the administrative effort required for the management of human resources. By easing the burden placed on staff, there is more time for them to concentrate on what is essential – patient health.