OnCallNow

What OnCallNow does

The always-current on-call lookup: per department, per shift, from StaffDesk’s rota — with the escalation chain when the first call does not answer. The question asked a hundred times a night, answered without a phone tree.

How you actually use it

1. 1Ask who is on callChoose a specialty and the screen answers in one line — the name, the contact number and until when. When nobody is rostered it says so in the same place, in the same size, rather than showing the last name it saw.
2. 2Read the escalation chain and the holesEscalation chain lists each step with its contact and until when; a step covered by a swap is marked cover. Holes in the rota lists every uncovered interval between two dates, in minutes.
3. 3Publish a periodOn Publish a period: specialty, person, from, to, contact number and step 1 to 5, then Publish. The database refuses two people on the same specialty and step over overlapping hours, and a period that ends before it starts.
4. 4Request cover and have somebody else approve itOn Cover swaps, pick the period, who covers and the reason, then Request cover. Covering yourself is refused, the requester cannot approve their own swap, and a decline needs a reason. An approved cover changes the answer at the top and shows covering for; the published rota row is untouched.

What it does not do

It does not go stale silently — a department with no on-call assignment shows as a loud gap, not yesterday’s name.

Questions clinics ask