Scheduling software has come a long way from the days when programs did little more than organize appointments. Today's scheduling software can help turn your facility into a marvel of modern efficiency, streamlining the way you enter and access data, benchmark, manage your supplies, book your ORs and more. In this article, we detail five features you should look for in the application you buy. We also list, alphabetically by company name, 11 products tailored for surgical facilities.

1. Interfaces with new or existing software
Interfacing provides communication continuity about procedure activities between multiple locations, departments and personnel. When searching for scheduling software to promote the interface with new or existing software, first determine if the new system is compatible with your other programs. Before the Digestive Health Center of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center bought new scheduling software, Sarah Eisenbacher, CGRN, manager of endoscopy, knew she had to find a system that could communicate with the seven other software systems in the facility.

"When we register a patient in our electronic medical-record system, the information is automatically sent to our scheduling software," says Ms. Eisenbacher. "This allows for single data entry as opposed to data-entry duplication that we've recognized as a problem in the current hospital information-system software."

2. Reduces redundancy
Having a software system that minimizes duplicate data entry is crucial to the efficient flow of a surgical facility. Information from scheduling should automatically be available to administrative and clinical users of the system. Ideally, all users should be able to input, gather and analyze data with a few clicks of the mouse.

"To reschedule an appointment with our old scheduling system, we first had to write down the patient's information (on a piece of paper), cancel the first appointment, then type patient data back in on a new day," says Wendy Huss, MBS, the assistant practice administrator at the Woodland Surgery Center in Appleton, Wis. Thanks to interfacing, rescheduling an appointment is simply a matter of cutting and pasting. Now, Ms. Huss can schedule multiple appointments in seconds.

Some systems also offer pull-down menus, touch screens and defaults for commonly used words. "I didn't want our nurses to be secretaries," says Colleen Lucas, RN, MSN, MBA, CNOR, director of surgical services at Mount Nittany Hospital in State College, Pa. "Our system has pull-down menus, so they don't have to type a great deal of information."

Another inefficiency of older systems: It's not easy to obtain information at a glance. "Our text-based mainframe was very labor-intensive for schedulers to look for open-procedure slots. We have 12 procedure rooms, and our system only allowed them to view one room at a time. Schedulers had to manually search through each room individually on any given day. If all 12 rooms were full, they had go through the same process the next day," says Aaron Pendergast, network systems analyst at the Digestive Health Center of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. "Our new system will let us view all 12 rooms and appointment slots on one screen. In addition, the new software allows visualization of weekly and monthly scheduled rooms if necessary."

3. Creates a database you can use to benchmark
Inputting data such as preference-card information and procedure times builds a database you can use for internal benchmarking. "Any information you gather, you can report," says Ms. Lucas. "We run reports on cost per doctor, monitor surgeons' volumes and evaluate room utilization."

Deb Leib, CASC, administrator at the Susquehanna Valley Surgery Center in Harrisburg, Pa., uses her software to analyze physicians' minimum, maximum and average surgery times per procedure. This provides a more accurate scheduling flow and assists in preventing case delays.

4. Provides conflict checking
One of the most basic jobs of scheduling software is to coordinate the operations of a center so it can run smoothly. By tracking rooms, surgeons and available equipment, the program can prevent double-bookings by alerting schedulers to possible conflicts when posting cases. Ms. Huss says her software prevents microscopes, C-arms and other equipment from getting double-booked. "If you're doing a cataract surgery with our only ophthalmic microscope, you can't schedule the equipment in another OR."

"Your software should display physician block times, preventing you from scheduling another physician in that time slot. With one of our customized features, we can block a doctor's requested procedure in advance," says Mr. Pendergast. "This guarantees him room space and promotes efficient schedule utilization."

5. Integrates your inventory management system
By tracking supply use through surgeon preference cards, software can streamline your inventory management process. Ms. Lucas has about 2,300 preference cards in the system and revises them as necessary. "Our doctors are always changing their minds. So it was important to find a program that would be easy to update. We had preference cards on our old system, but their use was limited because they were so difficult to change. Now if a physician wants to change his preference during a procedure, I can easily change that on all his preference cards at once."

Additional features
Other necessary features to look for are security management, onsite training and ongoing technical support. In addition to HIPAA compliance, many programs can provide a variety of security levels or clearance whereby each user is designated specific administrative or clinical access.

The vendor may provide onsite training varying from days to weeks or opt for offsite training via telephone conferencing or direct online tie-in. Keep in mind that training shouldn't end when your facility goes live; inquire about low-cost or no-cost training sessions and review sessions for ongoing and new users.

All computer systems will experience difficulty at times. Having dependable technical support will help keep your facility running smoothly. Our experts suggest looking for a vendor who can access your server remotely and see the problems you're seeing. In many cases, the vendor can then fix the problem on the spot so you can get back to business.

Planning for the future
As with any new technology purchase, planning ahead will save you money in the long run. "Try to estimate how much your business will grow, and get a system that will be able to handle this growth," says Ms. Leib. "We started out with a system that wasn't big enough and we had to upgrade memory."

Also consider investing in a system that's compatible with future technologies like electronic medical records. Gina Reagan, office administrator at the Foot Health Center in Maryville, Ill., wanted a system that would work with electronic medical software. It's not a technology her facility uses yet, but one that she would like to incorporate it in the future.