Case Study: Peterborough Regional Health Centre saves nearly 100 hours of schedule planning annually with PetalMD's Petal Scheduling

How an Automated Schedule Management Solution Helps Emergency Departments

Peterborough Regional Health Centre’s busy emergency department faced growing demand and increasing complexity in rostering: patient visits rose from 73,000 to nearly 82,000 per year, the ED expanded to 32 physicians with 11 shifts to cover each day, and Dr. Friesen was spending roughly 40 hours every three months building schedules by hand. To address this unsustainable burden, the site adopted PetalMD’s Petal Scheduling solution.

PetalMD implemented its automated scheduling engine that encodes department rules, physician availability and shift preferences while allowing manual edits and peer-shifts management. Using Petal Scheduling, Dr. Friesen cut schedule-creation time from 40 to 15 hours per quarter (a 62% reduction), saving about 100 hours a year, while delivering fairer, better-grouped shifts that improved physician work‑life balance and reduced shift trades.

Peterborough Regional Health Centre

Dale Friesen

Master Planner