Automated Physician Matching and Dispatch for Healthcare Practices
Sdilena Ordinace ("Shared Practice") is a medical staffing coordination platform that connects healthcare practices needing temporary physician coverage with available doctors. The system automates the entire locum tenens workflow: from posting a staffing need through matching, outreach, confirmation, and shift management.
The platform serves a critical need in healthcare systems where physician shortages are chronic. When a doctor goes on vacation, takes sick leave, or a clinic needs extra capacity, finding a qualified replacement quickly is the difference between patients receiving care and a clinic closing its doors for the day. Sdilena Ordinace reduces that coordination time from days to hours.
The fundamental challenge was bridging two worlds that operate differently. Clinics plan staff schedules weeks in advance and need structured, predictable coverage. Physicians who do locum tenens work value flexibility and minimal administrative overhead. The system needed to serve both sides: giving clinics confidence that positions would be filled, while making the process so simple for doctors that participation required nothing more than reading and replying to an email.
We built a platform centered on an intelligent matching algorithm that scores each doctor-to-shift pairing on a 100-point scale. When a clinic posts a staffing need, the system evaluates every registered physician against three dimensions: base compatibility, specialization fit, and geographic proximity.
The base compatibility score (50 points) evaluates fundamental qualifications: medical license status, availability during the requested dates, and any scheduling conflicts. Specialization matching (30 points) compares the clinic's requirements against the doctor's certifications, weighting exact specialty matches highest and adjacent specializations proportionally. Geographic proximity (20 points) factors in the doctor's location relative to the clinic, recognizing that shorter commutes increase acceptance rates.
Design principle: The entire doctor-facing workflow operates through email. Physicians never need to install an app, create an account, or learn a new interface. They receive structured emails about matching opportunities and respond with simple text commands. This zero-friction approach maximizes the available physician pool.
Doctors interact with the platform exclusively through email commands. When a coordinator sends an outreach email about a shift opportunity, the doctor can respond with any of these commands:
The system polls inbound email every minute, parsing commands and executing the corresponding actions. An incoming "approve" response from a doctor automatically updates the shift status, notifies the clinic, and marks the position as filled. This email-native approach means even physicians with minimal technical comfort can participate fully in the system.
100-point scoring algorithm evaluating base compatibility, specialization fit, and geographic proximity. Top-ranked matches are contacted first.
Zero-friction doctor workflow. Eight email commands handle the full lifecycle from outreach response through shift confirmation and reporting.
Full shift lifecycle tracking from request through assignment. Calendar view with conflict detection. Multi-day and recurring shift support.
When a staffing need is posted, the system automatically identifies matching doctors and sends outreach emails ranked by match score.
Automated reporting via cron. Weekly summaries every Friday and comprehensive monthly reports on the 1st. Coverage rates, response times, and utilization metrics.
Every action logged with timestamp, actor, and context. Email communications tracked in a dedicated email log. Full regulatory compliance support.
Sdilena Ordinace eliminated the chaos of manual physician staffing by replacing phone calls and personal networks with an automated, data-driven matching system. The impact was immediate and measurable:
The most significant outcome was the elimination of care gaps. Clinics that previously had to cancel patient appointments when a doctor was unavailable could now find qualified replacements within hours instead of days. The automated matching ensured that only relevant physicians were contacted, improving response rates and reducing the noise that caused doctors to ignore staffing requests in the old manual system.
For coordinators, the platform reduced administrative overhead by 75%. What previously required hours of phone calls, spreadsheet tracking, and follow-up emails now happens automatically. The coordinator posts a need, reviews the top matches, triggers outreach with one click, and monitors responses as they arrive. The email command system means doctors respond on their own schedule, and the system handles the rest.
The platform was built for reliability and simplicity, prioritizing email integration as the primary doctor-facing interface.
Four cron jobs power the automated workflows: email polling runs every minute to capture doctor responses, shift reminders go out daily at 8 AM for upcoming assignments, weekly reports generate every Friday morning, and monthly reports run on the 1st. The matching algorithm runs in real-time when staffing needs are created, scoring every active doctor in the database and returning ranked results to the coordinator within milliseconds.
Whether you are building a locum tenens platform, a nurse staffing system, or any healthcare workforce coordination tool, we can help you design the matching algorithms and workflows. Book a free discovery call or download our automation readiness checklist.