Workforce Management
LastMinute is a healthcare technology startup that optimizes hospital staffing through workforce management solutions. As the lead designer on the admin-facing dashboard, I spearheaded the redesign of a complex scheduling platform used by hospital administrators and managers at Northwestern Medicine and other healthcare systems.
Solution Overview
Before - too many clicks
After - simplified calendar tool
Context
Nurse managers need to coordinate both routine and urgent staffing needs—from scheduling regular shifts like "a nurse always work from 12am-6pm in ICU" to immediate demands such as "3 extra nurses needed in ER 6 at 8pm tonight."
Routine shifts
Regular schedules planned on a weekly basis
Problem
Nurse managers must navigate between two separate tabs to plan regular and last-minute shifts, creating workflow fragmentation and inefficiency.
When selecting staff, critical decision-making data—such as hourly costs and previous week's hours worked—remains invisible, forcing managers to schedule without essential workforce metrics.
User needs
Reduce clicks and consolidate fragmented processes to efficiently set up both regular and last-minute shifts
Access all critical information (pay range, hours worked, etc) in one view to make informed staffing decisions
Proposed flow
Design Process
I presented two design directions—conservative and transformative. The conservative approach maintains LastMinute's current structure while improving staff information display. The transformative design eliminates the separate LastMinute tab entirely, merging all scheduling functionality into a unified view.
Iteration
Nurse managers responded positively to the new design but provided valuable feedback for further enhancement:
Deliverable
Create new regular shifts or customized shifts through an unified calendar.
Create shift templates in advance for quick application to weekly calendar scheduling.
Request cross-clinic staff swap to redistribute nurses from overstaffed shifts in other departments.