An Innovative Approach to Resident Scheduling: Use of a Point-Based System to Account for Resident Preferences.

Abstract Background  The scheduling of residents for rotation assignments and on-call responsibilities is a time-consuming process that challenges the resources of residency programs. Assignment of schedules is traditionally done by chief residents or program administration with variable input from the residents involved. Intervention  We introduced an innovative point-based scheduling system to increase transparency in the scheduling process, foster a sense of fairness and equality in scheduling, and increase resident ownership for making judicious scheduling choices. Methods  We devised a point-based system in which each resident in our 40-member program was allocated an equal number of points. The residents assigned these points to their preferred choices of rotations. Residents were then surveyed anonymously on their perceptions of this new scheduling system and were asked to compare it with their traditional scheduling system. Results  The schedule was successfully implemented, and it allowed residen...