Customer Story | Feb 2026
How Boston Children’s Hospital Streamlined Physician Scheduling
Customer profile:
Reduce scheduling errors and keep teams aligned with fewer disruptions.
Streamline scheduling and payroll to give clinicians more time for care.
Launch faster with consistent workflows across every facility.
Used every day as part of your organization’s operations.
At Boston Children’s Hospital, physician scheduling is something most people never see, but everyone depends on. Behind every operating room start time and ICU shift is a carefully coordinated plan that has to balance clinical coverage, provider availability, and constant change. For the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine, that coordination is especially complex. Managing hundreds of clinicians across highly specialized teams requires a scheduling approach that is both flexible and reliable.
For the past six years, the department has relied on symplr Physician Scheduling software (formerly known as SpinFusion) to help keep everything running smoothly. Jessica Zapata, Senior Program Coordinator, is at the center of that work. “I oversee about 200-plus providers across multiple divisions,” Zapata said. “I’m really the point person for physician scheduling, whether that’s fixing issues, building schedules, or working with the symplr team to make things work better for our clinicians.”
The department uses symplr Physician Scheduling software across anesthesia-focused teams, including anesthesia, critical care ICU, cardiac, and pain. These groups depend on the system every day to manage assignments, track time, and make sure coverage is in place where it matters most.
Zapata’s day can include anything from creating new schedule templates to adjusting rules that prevent overlapping assignments.
“Our number of assignments is pretty large,” she explained. “It’s easy for someone to be scheduled in the morning and then accidentally overlap with something later in the day. A lot of what I do is making sure those conflicts don’t happen.”
The software also supports recurring assignments, incentive shifts, and time tracking. All of that information flows into payroll, with Zapata serving as the go-between to ensure everything lines up.
“At the end of every month, I review the schedules to make sure clinicians are being paid correctly for the work they’ve done,” she said. “That all starts with physician scheduling.”
While Zapata wasn’t at Boston Children’s before the system was put in place, she’s seen how much easier physician scheduling has become compared to more manual approaches.
“When I stepped into this role, it was clear that a lot used to be done on paper or manually,” she said. “Now everything is in one place, and that alone makes a huge difference.”
Clinicians can check their schedules on their phones, see where they need to be, and stay up to date without tracking down emails or spreadsheets.
“Most of our clinicians are checking their schedules on their phones throughout the day,” Zapata said. “That accessibility makes things much simpler for everyone.”
A big part of Zapata’s role is managing expectations. Not every change can happen overnight, especially in a department with so many moving parts.
“Our teams want things done quickly, and I get that,” she said. “If something takes longer, I try to find temporary solutions while we work toward the bigger fix.”
That approach has helped the department plan further ahead and reduce last-minute issues.
“Looking at reports early and planning ahead has made a big difference,” Zapata said. “It’s about finding gaps, fixing them one at a time, and making sure people understand what’s happening.”
Over time, the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine has seen clear improvements. By working closely with hospital leadership and the symplr Physician Scheduling team, they have reduced scheduling conflicts and errors by about 25 percent. Administrative processing time has dropped by roughly 20 percent.
Training new staff has also become easier. Zapata leads onboarding for new hires and creates training materials tailored to how different teams work.
“Once we talk through what clinicians need and make those adjustments, most people are happy,” she said. “They just want to know that someone’s listening and that their schedules make sense.”
Conclusion
After years of hands-on experience, Zapata says the biggest lesson is the importance of alignment and communication.
“Scheduling only improves when everyone is on the same page,” she said. “That means regular check-ins, looking at the same data, and understanding each other’s timelines.”
For the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine, symplr’s provider scheduling software has helped bring clarity to complex schedules, support clinicians behind the scenes, and give teams confidence that the right people are in the right place at the right time.
Request a free custom consultation to see how our SaaS solution streamlines complex physician scheduling processes.
