Sanford Health will soon schedule its more than 10,000 nurses using its internally developed artificial intelligence tool, the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based system said Feb. 24 on its website.
Five things to know:
- The tool's development began in 2019, spearheaded by Emily Buckingham-Carlson, RN, Sanford's head of enterprise clinical staffing and scheduling, after she noticed real-time information could help identify scheduling efficiencies. She developed the tool with Robert Menzie, a Sanford data scientist, and named it Leveraging Analytics to Mobilize and Prepare, or LAMP.
- LAMP allows nurses to spend less time in spreadsheets, ensures there are enough nurses for each shift and informs Sanford leaders about how many nurses should be hired for each unit.
- The system developed the tool in hopes other systems would adopt it to address staffing and burnout issues.
"If it works at a sprawling, integrated, rural system like Sanford Health — with 48,000 employees, two major medical centers, 44 other hospitals, 224 clinics and 233 senior living communities — it can work elsewhere," the system said. - Sanford partnered with Flexwise, a healthcare workforce software platform, to integrate its clinical expertise and algorithm into the company's workforce optimization software. Sanford Health's tool is being incorporated into Flexwise’s commercial software platform.
- Sanford has been piloting the tool since April 2021 in Fargo, N.D. On April 15, the system will roll it out in 68 departments, with more units to follow. Once Sanford and Flexwise's co-developed commercial product is available, it will be deployed across the system in 2022.