OTTAWA – Hôpital Montfort has successfully deployed a hospital-wide, physician scheduling solution from PetalMD, of Quebec City. The system has reduced scheduling errors and improved patient care coordination, all at less cost than alternative solutions, the hospital said.

The hospital had been using a variety of methods to track and manage physician schedules, including spreadsheets and even pen and paper. Departmental schedules would be collected and input into a 15-year-old application that ran on an Intranet. However, the software was becoming obsolete, and the hospital wanted a web-based scheduling solution that created and distributed the on-call schedules, with the ability to change shifts, and allowed physicians to manage their own schedules.

After much due diligence and evaluation of vendors by the CIO, the Hôpital Montfort selected PetalMD as their hospital-wide scheduling solution. Not only did PetalMD fit the scheduling criteria, but it also fit the hospital’s strategy of moving onto the cloud and using modern technologies.

The department of emergency medicine, led by Dr. Shaun Visser, was the first group to adopt PetalMD scheduling software. Seeing this success, the Chief of Staff, Dr. Guy Moreau (pictured), was confident that PetalMD was the right tool to replace the old Intranet system.

“The deciding factor to go with PetalMD was to have all the departments on one platform and the ability for physicians to access their schedule from home, on their iPhone, anywhere, anytime,” said Dr. Moreau.

In addition, now that everyone in the hospital has access to an on-call schedule in real-time, the staff is able to reach the right physician at all times, and thus better coordinate patient care. With the hospital’s recent expansion, PetalMD has helped them gain efficiency by decreasing both software and staff costs.

The hospital’s other option was to rebuild the legacy Intranet software. Developing new software internally was cost prohibitive and the hospital wanted to focus on what it does best: patient care.

Overall, PetalMD has helped Hôpital Montfort reduce scheduling errors, improve patient care coordination, decrease scheduling costs and improve staff efficiency.

About Hôpital Montfort
Hôpital Montfort is a university teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Ottawa in Ontario. The hospital serves over 1.2 million residents of Eastern Ontario and delivers both short-term primary and secondary health care in French and English. Hôpital Montfort has 289 beds and employs more than 1,800 employees. Over 350 physicians offer a wide range of care and services.

About PetalMD
PetalMD is a web-based physician scheduling and secure messaging solution for hospitals and physician groups. With a mission to improve the lives of physicians, PetalMD is committed to assisting physicians with creating and managing their work schedules, allowing them to share documents, communicate on topics of interest and have access to essential medical information. PetalMD is proud to be a full-service company offering turn-key solutions, including a free option and custom modules.