DEAL!

Client: 174-staffed-bed Mercy Medical Center, Roseburg, OR.

Services: Staff scheduling software.

Issue Addressed: Difficulty in filling scheduling holes. “We would call nurses at home on their day off, which was frustrating for them and for us,” says Chief Nursing Officer Yvonne Kirk, PhD, RN.

Winning Vendor: BidShift, signed May 2006.

Terms: One-year leasing agreement, between $4,000 and $6,000 monthly.

Selection Team: Kirk and an assistant reviewed vendors and presented to staff.

Number Vendors Considered: Four; Per-Se Technologies was runner-up.

Evaluation Tools: Web demos conducted with 20-plus nurse executives and staff.

Selling Points: BidShift’s remote hosting setup required no local software installation.

Deployment: Began when contract signed; system now used by 500 nurses and other support staff. Link resides on corporate intranet with remote access enabled.

How it Works: Managers add scheduling gaps to system, nurses request work online, managers confirm by e-mail.

—Gary Baldwin