Healthcare scheduling software solutions

• Demanding schedules and changing availability make scheduling healthcare staff hard, and ensuring that only qualified people have the ability to pick up certain shifts makes it harder.
• Healthcare scheduling software helps you streamline staff scheduling processes, track employee hours from anywhere, and stay connected with your employees, no matter where they’re working.
• Homebase’s employee scheduling tool lets you create staff schedules in minutes, adjust shifts and availability easily, track employee hours, breaks, and overtime automatically, and communicate with team members within one platform.

At a glance: Our top pick for healthcare scheduling software

As an all-in-one solution that’s easy for anyone to pick up and use, Homebase is our top choice for healthcare scheduling software, particularly if you’ve got staff who are on the go a lot. The platform ticks all the boxes with its ease of use and free mobile app that’s ideal for scheduling and time tracking.

As a healthcare scheduling solution, Homebase makes it easy to:

• Create schedules weeks in advance
• Make sure unqualified staff don’t claim open shifts by requiring manager approval 
• Swap shifts, remind employees of upcoming shifts, and leave handy shift notes
• Prevent home healthcare workers from clocking in before they reach a patient’s residence with geofencing

What healthcare professionals should look for in scheduling software 

Not all scheduling software works well for supervisors and professionals in the healthcare industry. You need to create schedules weeks ahead of time so busy staff members can plan their time accordingly. You have to make sure that all your shifts are covered and that you have backups so patient satisfaction never suffers. 

With that in mind, here are three scheduling software qualities healthcare professionals shouldn’t go without.

Mobile app

Even if you’re managing an on-site medical team, patient care providers and hospital workers don’t work at stationary desks. Since they’re on the go more often than not, they may prefer using their phones to track their time and check their schedules rather than a computer. That makes it tricky to rely on a web-based team management solution.

That’s why great scheduling software should give employees access to their schedules on a mobile app. But not only that — it should also send medical staff updates about schedule changes and pre-shift reminders, as well as let supervisors add personal notes and instructions for every shift.

Time tracking

Your medical staff may always be on the move, but you still need to make sure they’re signing into their shifts at the right place and time. That’s why excellent healthcare scheduling software should have a mobile time tracking tool that:

• Lets employees clock in and out from their mobile device
• Notifies managers or supervisors when someone’s late for their shift
• Allows you to put measures in place that prevent employees from checking in early

And if you manage home health care workers, you know it can be challenging to make sure they don’t sign into work before they actually reach their work site. For this situation, an ideal scheduling tool would offer a geofencing function that lets supervisors create virtual boundaries around patient homes, for example. That way, your home health staff wouldn’t be able to start their shift until they crossed the boundary.

Easy to use

Medical staff supervisors typically have to create employee schedules weeks in advance to make sure they always have all shifts covered and accounted for. But if you have a lot of employees to coordinate, it can take a lot of time to create effective schedules for an entire month, especially if you want to avoid any conflicts.

When it comes to creating a timetable that everyone’s satisfied with, ease of use matters. Your scheduling system should notify you about potential conflicts automatically before you even publish your schedule. It should be super simple for employees to swap shifts with each other, only requiring managers to approve swaps with a click. The right platform should also have a very minimal learning curve, making it perfect for new hires and short-term staff to learn.

Top healthcare scheduling software comparison chart

The 5 best healthcare scheduling software solutions out there right now

While not all these options are healthcare-specific, here are our top five scheduling software recommendations to consider for your medical team management needs. And while some of the following platforms are all-in-one scheduling solutions that aren’t as specialized, they’re more affordable — even free! — and easier to use for part-time and remote employees.

1. Homebase

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The Homebase scheduling feature lets you customize schedules for your medical staff and save them as templates.

Homebase provides an easy, convenient scheduling solution for on-the-go teams — making it perfect for the healthcare industry —  and offers an all-in-one team management platform that brings together features for time clocks, payroll, communication, HR and compliance, and employee happiness.

And Homebase makes it really easy to manage employee scheduling and time tracking with nothing more than your mobile device. All you have to do is ask staff members to download the Homebase app during their onboarding process and they’ll have access to their schedules and be able to easily clock in and out of their shifts and communicate with other employees.

Stand-out features

• Schedule templates: If your employee schedules stay the same week after week, you can create a template and reuse it in the future, saving you lots of time.

• Easy and secure shift swaps: Our app makes it easy for employees to coordinate shift swaps on their own. But you don’t have to worry about employees trading shifts with unqualified team members — once someone requests a swap, the app notifies the supervisor automatically, giving them the option to approve or reject it.

Geofencing for mobile clock ins: The Homebase platform prevents home health staff and remote team members from starting their shifts before they arrive at their job sites or patients’ homes. Supervisors can create geographical boundaries around work sites remotely, preventing time theft issues.

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Use Homebase scheduling to turn recurring employee schedules into handy templates.

Pros and cons

The Homebase scheduling and time tracking features are free, so you’ll get access to our employee scheduling and time clock tools with your free account. And although Homebase wasn’t designed for hospitals or medical staff specifically, our platform’s full suite of team management tools — extending to payroll and HR — is perfect for healthcare teams that don’t have the time or resources to invest in a more complicated and costly healthcare management solution.

Pricing

With Homebase’s free plan, you can track employee hours, manage schedules, message team members, and even hire new employees. From there, you can upgrade to the:

• Essentials plan: $20 per month per location
• Plus plan: $48 per month per location
• All-in-one plan: $80 per month per location

2. Shiftboard

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Organize lists of readily available employees and fill open shifts quickly with Shiftboard.

Shiftboard is an employee scheduling and workforce management platform for employees in the manufacturing, warehousing, staffing, energy, corrections, and healthcare industries. With Shiftboard, you can automate scheduling and deal with industry-specific situations like job rotations and emergency response team assignments.

Stand-out features

• Fill empty shifts easily: Keep a real-time, on-demand list of available, qualified employees for those days when you have gaps to fill.

• Assign overtime hours fairly: Track previous shift refusals, overtime history, employee seniority, and current overtime balance so you can spread your extra hours out equally across your team.

Pros and cons

Unlike Homebase, Shiftboard doesn’t have its own services for HR, payroll, or human capital management (HCM). But Shiftboard is a great medical staffing solution — like in the emergency services field — where supervisors often need to get shifts filled quickly.

Pricing

A Shiftboard subscription starts at:

• $45 per month for up to 30 employees
• $120 per month for up to 75 employees
• $276 per month for up to 125 employees

3. NurseGrid

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NurseGrid can help keep track of your schedules for various work locations in one central calendar.

As an app created “for nurses, by nurses,” NurseGrid lets you coordinate your team and gives your nursing or hospital staff 24/7 access to their schedules on their smartphones. Staff members can also use NurseGrid to compare their calendars with their coworkers and get an instant look at who they’re working with on a certain day.

Stand-out features

• The unique Shift Reflection tool: Make post-shift self care simple. Nurses can use Shift Reflection to rate their shifts, take note of their emotions, identify their most challenging moments, and keep a detailed journal about how their day went.
• Easy to keep track of schedules across multiple locations: Forget about managing multiple calendars from different hospitals and clinics. Stay on top of your employee schedule with one calendar within the NurseGrid mobile app.

Pros and cons

Compared to the other options on this list, NurseGrid has limited functions. But it lets users swap shifts and check colleague schedules easily, so they always know who they’ll be working with. Plus, the NurseGrid calendar can sync with Google Calendar for better consistency and visibility.

Pricing

NurseGrid plans start at $349 dollars per month.

4. Connecteam

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With Connecteam, it’s easy to add, duplicate, and drag and drop employee shifts.

Connecteam is a cloud-based employee management solution that combines tools for scheduling, time tracking, task management, and HR and people management in one platform. You can also streamline your staff workflows by turning checklists and forms into quick-access resources on Connecteam’s mobile app.

Stand-out features

• Assign employees tasks during shifts: The task management feature means you can allocate tasks to your staff members and make sure that they complete them by the end of their shifts.
• Train your employees on workplace safety: Connecteam’s health and safety feature lets you upload training courses and send safety updates to your staff members. 

Pros and cons

Unlike Homebase, Connecteam doesn’t have its own integrated payroll tool, but you can import your timesheets to external platforms like QuickBooks and Gusto. The Connecteam mobile app may also be a good match for your team if you’re looking for workplace safety, training, and learning management tools.

Pricing

Connecteam has a free plan for small businesses with up to ten users. After that, paid plans start at:

• $29 per month for the Basic plan for the first 30 users and $0.50 for every additional user
• $49 per month for the Advanced plan and $1.50 for every additional user
• $99 per month for the Expert plan and $3 for every additional user

5. Paycor

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Paycor lets you geoverify that your employees punch into their shifts where and when they’re supposed to.

Paycor is a human capital management (HCM) system with dedicated features for companies that need help with HR, payroll, and financial administration. Paycor serves businesses of every size and in multiple industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and education.

Stand-out features

• Geoverify employee locations: Make sure your team members sign into their shifts at the correct location by tracking and validating where they are.

• Get a deeper look at your overtime spending: Segment your overtime data and costs by department, manager, and location. 

Pros and cons

Unlike many other solutions on this list, you can’t use Paycor’s mobile app for geofencing, and it’s not as flexible as Homebase in terms of communication. For example, the Paycor platform doesn’t let you message your team members. But it does allow you to keep track of the employee experience with surveys and career and learning management software.

Pricing

Paycor offers four plans:

• The Basic plan starts at $99 per month and $5 per person per month
• The Essential plan starts at $149 per month and $6 per person per month
• The Complete plan starts at $199 per month and $7 per person per month
• The HCM plan starts at $199 per month and $12 per person per month