The Schumacher Group is a nationwide Emergency
Department Management firm. It is an INC 500 company for 2 years running and is
recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Louisiana.
One of the roles The Schumacher Group plays in
managing Emergency Departments is the staffing of over 600 physicians in
hospitals across the country. Scheduling that many doctors at well over 50
hospitals has been a challenge for the company. Historically, the company used
their existing messaging system, Microsoft Exchange to handle the scheduling
component. However, as the company grew and more advanced functionality was
required, they were forced into looking for a new scheduling system.
After several months of debating whether to
purchase a packaged Emergency Department scheduling system or build one from the
ground up, they found a solution may be possible leveraging Microsoft Access
2000, Microsoft SQL 7, and
DBI Technologies
Solutions::PIM Professional. Leveraging their
existing database system and the Solutions::PIM Professional ActiveX controls, The
Schumacher Group was able to design an add-in that allowed the scheduling of
physicians through their Access 2000 application.
"We were able to knock out what
could have been a major initiative in a matter of months"
In detail, the developers at The Schumacher
Group designed the application to retrieve hospital and physician information
and populate the PIM calendar with availability and shift times. With the new
drag and drop interface, TSG employees were able to schedule a month of
physician shifts in less than half the time than their legacy system. In
addition, management was able to run reports against that shift information to
determine open shifts and physician availability.
The new scheduling system is scheduled to go
live on January 1, 2002, and the company is very excited about the new software.
Director of Information Technology, Ryan Klym, stated, “I am pleased at what the
developers were able to accomplish using DBI Tech’s controls with our existing
database system. With a few minor customizations to the original code from DBI,
we were able to knock out what could have been a major initiative in a matter of
months at a very reasonable price. The
Solutions::PIM Professional tools are quite robust
and flexible, making integration a simple task. Again, I’m very pleased at what
we’ve done.
Ryan Klym
Director of Information Technology
The Schumacher Group of Delaware Inc.
Lafayette, LA USA
www.tsged.com
