Whether it’s your first or hundredth home call shift, preparing yourself both physically and mentally is crucial. These shifts can be unpredictable, demanding, and emotionally taxing, making it essential to prioritize your well being while maintaining your readiness to provide the best possible patient care. By adopting effective time management, organization, and healthy strategies, you can confidently navigate the unique challenges of home call shifts. 

What is the difference between home call and in-house call?

There are two types of on-call shifts you could be scheduled for as a healthcare professional in a hospital setting, that can depend on experience level and specialty. So, it is important to understand the difference. 

Home Call – If you are scheduled for a home call shift, you can leave the hospital when you are not dealing with a patient emergency. Depending on the organization, you may need to stay within a certain radius of the hospital so that you can tend to patients on a moment’s notice. Whether you are at home, in an accommodation, grabbing dinner, at the grocery store, etc. you must be readily available to drop everything and rush to the hospital if you get called in for an emergency. However there are also some less demanding tasks associated with home call allowing more flexibility and time management. 

In-House Call – When scheduled for an in-house call, you are unable to leave the hospital premises. You can take time to rest in the on-call room, however, you will often be needed more frequently to tend to patients. When requested, the in-house call doctor must immediately be mobilized to patient situations. This type of call shift requires higher levels of activity, but can offer a more structured work-life balance. 

Surviving your next home call shift

While home call may have more flexibility involved, it can still be stressful remaining on your toes through the night, so we compiled a list of strategies to help you get through your next home call shift:

Clearly define what constitutes as an alert – When on a home call shift, you should only be called in during patient emergencies. It is important to clearly outline what an emergency is with your team so that you are not getting call after call about situations that can wait until the morning to be dealt with. You should only be called into the hospital for issues where patients need immediate care or consultation. Communicating this with your team will result in a less stressful shift and a better work-life balance.

Leverage technology effectively – It is especially critical to have a robust way to connect with your team during emergencies. So, you must ensure that your organization employs a clinical communication and collaboration solution, like OnPage, that bypasses the silent switch and always mobilizes you to critical patient emergencies even in the middle of the night. With OnPage’s smart communication routing based on on-call schedules, roles and policies, you can rest assured that your team can instantly reach you during patient emergencies— no need to worry about sharing contact information or schedules, as long as they’re correctly updated on the system.

Take short naps – Getting some shut eye, whether it’s 5 minutes or 5 hours during an on call shift is crucial to ensure that you are delivering the best possible care when emergencies arise. Being well rested will help you to be more alert, make sound decisions, and respond effectively in high-pressure situations. 

Don’t engage in demanding activities – While on call, you must be able to efficiently get to the hospital. This requires you to stay within a certain range of the facility oftentimes the standard is less than 30 minutes away. However, we also suggest that you don’t engage in demanding activities, like high intensity workouts that will cause fatigue or events that you can’t easily get up and leave from (concerts, movies, dinner parties, etc.). Additionally, keep in mind that some event venues block the use of phones with signal jamming preventing you from receiving critical messages.

How OnPage Improves Home Call

When on a home call or in-house call shift, it is important that you can effectively communicate with your team. So, many hospitals and clinics employ OnPage’s clinical communication and collaboration solution for the beneficial features like: 

High and low priority alerts – With OnPage, care teams can distinguish between high and low priority messages to ensure that critical needs are always prioritized and tended to immediately. 

Digital on-call scheduler – OnPage’s on-call scheduler enables teams to create equitable rotations, enhancing team satisfaction. Additionally, all team members gain visibility into real-time schedules and updates on the OnPage phone application. These schedules are seamlessly integrated into OnPage’s routing system, automatically directing critical communication to the right provider, and escalating them if left unacknowledged. 

HIPAA compliant chat collaboration – Teams can securely chat about patient cases via OnPage’s chat collaboration features. With encrypted HIPAA compliant messages, they never have to worry about cybercriminals intercepting sensitive patient information or violating HIPAA regulations. 

Conclusion

Taking on home call shifts can be challenging and it is important for physicians to sufficiently prepare before their scheduled hours to ensure that they are delivering exceptional patient care. Hopefully this blog provided you with some new strategies that will help you to survive your next on-call shift. 

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