Riding the Wave: How Data-Driven Scheduling Can Transform Your Radiology Practice

At the ARRS 2025 Wellness Symposium, William Moore, MD, delivered a compelling presentation on a strategy that is reshaping radiology workflows for the better: wave scheduling. While the traditional definition involves scheduling multiple patients at the top of the hour, Dr. Moore explained how he has adapted this concept to create a more balanced, efficient, and predictable environment for radiologists. The core idea? To move away from a reactive “feast or famine” workday and towards a steady, manageable flow of cases.

What is Wave Scheduling in Radiology?

In the context of a radiology department, wave scheduling isn’t about grouping patients, but about building systems that create a “wave” of studies ready for interpretation. This ensures that when radiologists begin their day, a backlog of cases is already waiting for them.

One of the most significant pain points this system addresses is the morning lull. “When [physicians] show up in the morning and there’s nothing on the list, you want to hear some angry people,” Dr. Moore noted. To combat this, his outpatient centers continue scanning late into the evening, well after the radiologists have finished reading for the day. This ensures a robust worklist is available first thing in the morning, allowing physicians to be productive from the moment they arrive.

A similar logic is applied to the inpatient and Emergency Department (ED) settings. Overnight readers are instructed to leave non-critical ICU cases, such as follow-ups for line placement, for the morning team. This provides an immediate queue of work, while urgent reads are, of course, handled immediately overnight.

Letting Data Drive the Schedule

The successful implementation of wave scheduling is impossible without one critical component: data. Dr. Moore stressed the need for analytics to understand workflow patterns and make informed decisions. By analyzing historical data, his department uncovered predictable peaks and troughs in case volume, both throughout the week and across the year.

Weekly Trends: The data revealed a clear pattern: Mondays are consistently the busiest day of the week, with case volume tapering off towards Friday.

• The Problem: An evenly staffed week would leave radiologists overwhelmed on Monday and underutilized on Friday.
• The Solution: “We have anywhere between one to two extra people on a Monday,” Dr. Moore explained. As the week progresses, more radiologists are allocated academic or administrative time. This matches staffing levels to the actual workload, balancing the week for the entire team.

Seasonal Trends: Analysis of yearly data showed predictable lulls and surges. For instance, August is consistently a slow month, while volume explodes in September and October before dipping again in December.

• The Problem: Strict vacation policies can lead to burnout and retention issues, especially when staff want time off during busy periods.
• The Solution: By identifying August as a reliably slow period, the department can confidently approve vacation requests during this time. “We have the opportunity using our data to schedule our physicians in a meaningful way so that they can get time off with their family and try to keep them,” said Dr. Moore. This data-backed flexibility is a powerful tool for improving physician wellness.

The Four-Part Plan for Success

Dr. Moore concluded by boiling the process down to a clear, iterative cycle:

1. Make a Plan: Use data to design a workflow and staffing model that anticipates patient volume.
2. Execute the Plan: Implement the schedule and the technology to support it.
3. Tweak It (Endlessly): This is not a “set it and forget it” solution. Continuously adjust distribution rules, staffing levels, and schedules based on performance and new data.
4. Get Feedback: The most crucial step. “You must get feedback from your radiologists,” Dr. Moore urged. “If you don’t, you can’t possibly understand what you’re going to do.”

By embracing wave scheduling, departments can create a system that smooths out the chaotic peaks and valleys of the workday. It’s a data-driven, flexible approach that not only enhances efficiency but also directly contributes to radiologist wellness by creating a more predictable and manageable work environment.