Sydney Tertiary Hospital Saves 300+ Hours a Year with AI Rosters

Background

A large tertiary hospital, part of South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, faced the complex task of writing rosters for over 60 Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) in their Emergency Department (ED). Balancing part-time workers and fairness expectations made roster creation a significant administrative burden.

Before RosterLab, rostering a 13-week term took senior staff specialists approximately 120 hours of manual effort. With the implementation of RosterLab's SMO rostering software, this workload has been reduced by 67% - to around 40 hours for their first roster, while still getting the hang of a new rostering system and process.

“It’s not just about saving hours. It's about confidence in the roster, about fairness, and about giving senior clinicians time back for patient care - not spreadsheets.” - Emergency Physician.

With four roster cycles each year, this represents over 320 hours and approximately $40,000 saved annually on time alone - with further efficiencies expected as the team continues to refine their rostering rules for the next term.

The Challenge

“It's not the task that burns you out - it's the grind of constantly fixing broken systems.” explains the physician. 

Writing SMO rosters in a large ED isn't just about filling shifts. Their leadership team had to juggle:

• Complex availability constraints (many SMOs also worked in other hospitals)
• Ensuring fairness in shift distribution
• Maintaining senior coverage 24/7
• Balancing clinical, educational, and leadership responsibilities
• Managing daily swap, leave edits and manual fixes that carry a steep time cost

Beyond the direct cost savings, the manual rostering process also carried significant opportunity costs for senior clinical leadership.

The emergency physician also notes that “..the complexities of consultant preferences made rostering feel like solving a jigsaw puzzle. RosterLab has already made a big dent in that ..” 

The RosterLab Solution

Working closely with the team, RosterLab introduced its AI-driven SMO rostering software. The first roster model was understandably the most challenging, as staff adapted to a new rostering methodology and clarified rules that had often lived informally in managers' heads.

Despite this learning curve, the first-term roster built with RosterLab reduced roster writing time dramatically.

Notably:

• Time reduced from 120 hours to 40 hours (a 67% improvement from the first roster)
• $40,000 saved annually
• Roster quality and fairness improved, with clearer application of availability and shift equity
• Solved complex rules, such as “no-day-after-night” and other critical EBA rules
• Enabled open shifts to reduce coordination calls for staff availability

“I used to manage a labyrinth of formulas across multiple spreadsheets. It worked - but it was incredibly time-consuming. With RosterLab, we're trading that for something smarter and more sustainable.” says the physician.

With our new auto shift swap feature, the next roster will be even more automated and involve fewer post-planning changes from admins.

Ongoing Benefits

The team also noted that their time savings are only the beginning. As they continue to add new custom rules into RosterLab, they anticipate even more reductions in manual work and increased consistency in their scheduling.

Once the requirements and inputs are set up in RosterLab, there's no need for a spreadsheet 'puzzle master.' Any trained manager can run it, ensuring consistent rostering quality, clinical safety, and adequate staffing.

In addition to saved hours, the hospital has unlocked other key benefits:

• Improved confidence in roster fairness across part-time and cross-site SMOs
• Smoother rostering cycles, with less last-minute fixing
• Better utilisation of senior clinical time for patient care and leadership
• With tools like open shifts and shift swaps, the team can handle unexpected changes more easily
• Increased autonomy allowing any trained manager to run the roster

“I see this as a reinvestment of the time I spent building spreadsheets - in learning something that’s going to give us better time benefits long-term.” explains the emergency physician.

Why This Matters

In complex environments like Emergency Departments, efficient SMO rostering is critical not just for operational flow, but for maintaining clinical excellence and workforce wellbeing. RosterLab's ED rostering software empowers hospitals to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional patient care.

“If rostering still feels like a grind, it doesn’t have to be. We’ve seen what’s possible when the right rules and tools are in place - and I’d be happy to show you how it could work for your team.”- Daniel, Co-Founder at RosterLab

Discover how RosterLab’s digital scheduling solution can help your hospital save time, improve fairness, and focus more on patient care.