OREM, UT – When it comes to hospital staff scheduling software, customer satisfaction varies widely among finance, IT and nursing departments, sometimes producing departmental battles over which needs are given priority.

In a new study, "Staff Scheduling: Nurses Rock the Boat," research firm KLAS found a significant gap between  vendor solutions favored by nurses and those preferred by the finance and human resources departments or the IT team.

With an eye toward usability and functionality, nurses rated RES-Q Labor Resource Management and McKesson ANSOS One-Staff as top solutions, with Kronos Workforce Scheduler earning the lowest rating from that group. Finance and human resources professionals, however, rated Kronos a full 13 points higher on KLAS' 100-point scale based on strong reporting capabilities and anticipated cost savings.

"CNOs want a staff scheduling solution that's easy to manage and easy to use, CIOs want strong integration and support and CFOs want to improve the bottom line," said Jared Peterson, KLAS' vice president of operations and author of the report. "Those differing needs play to the strengths of different vendors, which often make the task of selecting a staff scheduling solution a very difficult one.

"Overall, however, feedback from nursing proved to be the biggest differentiator in choosing a product, because nurses' high user demands and strong opinions helped some vendors while sorely hurting others," Peterson said.

The KLAS report notes that the past three years have seen a significant increase in the number of sites that use staff scheduling, but scheduling technology has still penetrated only 40 percent of the market.

However, the pressure to adopt is mounting, the report notes. The national economy, slim profit margins and heavy labor costs are encouraging organizations to improve their use of resources by automating staff scheduling.

When combining the feedback across all hospital departments, RES-Q was the top-rated vendor, with a performance score of 86.5 out of 100. AtStaff was the next highest-rated product vendor at 83.6, followed by McKesson at 83.3. API, Kronos and Lawson are also referenced in the KLAS report.

While their performance scores remain strong, some providers did note that RES-Q and AtStaff do not yet offer enterprise solutions. API, Kronos, McKesson and Lawson offer complete enterprise workforce management suites, including time and attendance, scheduling, HR and analytics. Only RES-Q and AtStaff do not offer time and attendance and HR.