Dilemmas of a rota: Google's solution

Doctors take many forms of leave to further career training. Many hospital rotas omit these and are not updated frequently to reflect swaps in on-call duties. As a result, confusion arises with reduced staffing levels leading to sub-optimal patient care. Using Google Sheets, rota's can be modified to be team specific, remotely accessed, and edited by any device with an internet connection and web browser. A qualitative pre and post-implementation questionnaire assessed the usefulness of the online rota. The rota was trialled on a surgical and medical team containing foundation year, core medical, core surgical, and registrar trainees. The respective surgical and medical rotas were copied, modified and pasted into a Google Sheet to contain only team specific information including all forms of leave. A link was emailed allowing teams to access and edit the rota. Post-implementation questionnaire 90% (n=10) stated they could access it remotely and 100% felt the new rota was very easy to use. Finally, 80% stated the Google Doc rota was a definite improvement on the old trust rota. The rota was then trialled on an ITU SHO rota (n=8). The results were reproducible with 88% feeling it addressed their requirements and stating it was an improvement on their old rota. As a result of the implementation appropriate staffing levels were maintained on the ward. The key advantages of the Google rota are that it included all forms of leave and helped ensure adequate staffing levels on the ward. The remote nature means easy access even if off-site and can be viewed easier on smart phones. The different privacy settings ensure security of document. The rota is updated in real-time giving an accurate representation of staffing levels – vital for service managers. The software is free to use, allowing it to work within current hospital IT framework.