NurseGrid Helps Nurses Take Control of Their Schedule

“We trust PubNub and their reliability—it just takes so many of the constraints off of us that we can just focus on the product, which is fantastic.” Lorenzo Ciacci, CTO at NurseGrid

Meet NurseGrid

Based out of Portland, OR, NurseGrid is dedicated to improving the work-life balance of nurses by reducing inefficiencies in scheduling. They offer an app that allows nursing departments to access, manage, and share their schedules with colleagues in real time. “Our founders, who were nurses, said ‘There's got to be a better way. I'm on my phone all the time. You're on your phone all the time. Let's make a mobile app,’” said Lorenzo Ciacci, CTO at NurseGrid. 

NurseGrid’s platform provides a way for nurses to see open shifts, swap shifts, and see when a colleague is working. They have evolved what was once a pen and paper process for scheduling and timekeeping to an automated approach that simplifies schedule distribution and communication. 

To improve efficiency between departments, they also offer a web application called NurseGrid Manager that integrates with their mobile app. This allows managers to oversee high-level functions as they occur, like schedule management, and gives them the ability to push out these schedules to nurses and staff. 

As a way to enhance workplace scheduling on their app, NurseGrid turned to PubNub.  

Improving nurse scheduling with reliable, real-time features 

NurseGrid uses PubNub for real-time scheduling updates to nurses. Through push notifications and alerts, users on the app can see schedule changes, like open shifts, in real time. They can then decide if they want to pick up that open shift or swap shifts with other nurses. For instance, if a nurse wants to take a shift, they can view the requirements of the shift they are interested in and secure that shift directly in the app–speeding up scheduling and simplifying nurse communication. By automating this process in real time, their app helps reduce the managerial capacity and costs associated with scheduling. 

Additionally, users on the app can overlay their colleagues' schedules with their own to see if their shifts align. Compared to the post-it notes and whiteboards that nursing departments have traditionally used, their app provides a modernized way for nurses to see workplace scheduling in real time.

Alongside receiving instantaneous in-app updates and managing schedule changes, nurses can also privately chat with one another, bringing a sense of connectedness within the nursing community. Their app provides a reliable two-way communication channel for nurses, which helps to improve workplace engagement and productivity.

For NurseGrid, implementing these features with PubNub has helped their team to save on development time since they don’t need to build chat from the ground up, and has allowed them to prioritize building features that make the end user experience better for nurses on their app. 

Increasing user satisfaction and retention 

In addition to the ability to reduce inefficiencies in workplace scheduling through real-time updates, NurseGrid helps to improve the overall work-life balance of nurses with their easy-to-use schedule distribution features. 

Through their app’s capabilities, nurses are able to see scheduling times in advance and choose their preferred schedule–allowing them to plan ahead for time outside of work and decrease burnout. This enables nurses to easily create a schedule that allows them to prioritize their personal lives, creating a happier workplace environment that fosters nurse retention. Moreover, their app gives users the ability to see who is working alongside them during a shift. 

“The primary use case for NurseGrid is that it allows colleagues to find people that they want to work with, which is so important to nurses,” said Ciacci. With NurseGrid, users can not only choose to work a shift where certain colleagues are working, but their app also opens the door for other colleagues to pick up a shift. This differentiates who is on the schedule so the same nurses are not overworked.

By relying on PubNub’s real-time scheduling updates and in-app messaging, NurseGrid makes it easy for users to manage and share their schedules with colleagues, ensuring that nurse communication and schedule distribution is happening in real time.    

As a platform that was founded by nurses, NurseGrid gives their users the ability to organize their schedules the way they want, which helps to increase nurse satisfaction and retention.  

Confidently looking ahead with a secure chat 

Today, NurseGrid has over 1.5 million downloads, as it continues to transform the scheduling process for nurses and staff. Since using PubNub, NurseGrid has allowed their users to reduce inefficiencies in scheduling through real-time push notifications, alerts, and in-app messaging. As a result, this has ultimately allowed NurseGrid to keep users on their app up-to-date with the newest schedule changes, without worrying about backend infrastructure. 

As NurseGrid continues to grow, Ciacci and his team are excited to partner with PubNub moving forward so they can truly focus on their product and adding innovative and secure chat features that will continue to support the needs of their users. 

“We trust PubNub and their reliability—it just takes so many of the constraints off of us that we can just focus on the product, which is fantastic,” said Ciacci. “It’s going to be pretty transformative,” said Ciacci. “I think it's going to be really meaningful for the audience.” 

By using PubNub, NurseGrid can operate efficiently and in real time, to deliver scheduling updates to nurses. If you’re looking to create real-time chat experiences that allow you to focus on your users instead of infrastructure, get in touch with one of our experts.