Interesting project. Can I canvas ideas before I start?

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MiniMonty
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Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:09 am
Location: UK

Interesting project. Can I canvas ideas before I start?

Post by MiniMonty »

Hi all,

hope you're all having a good holiday...

Someone has cone to me with an interesting project which I'm keen to take on.
I'm a bit out of my depth with it (but that's how we learn - right) ?
So I'm after some tips, ideas, thoughts and general views on how to go forward.

OVERVIEW:
One side of the coin is a healthcare provider, the other are freelance nurses, in the middle is an agent.
The agent (my client) has to match up the nurses availability with the healthcare providers needs.
It's a fairly dynamic market with the healthcare provider's need for nurses changing day by day - also, the availability
of the nurses can alter (and falter) day by day.
A shift is 12 hours.
It's all happening in one (fairly small) UK city.


So... the provider may need to provide 24/7 nursing care for a patient for twelve weeks and needs to book nursing for that patient from a pool of
let's say 150 specialist nurses who each only want to book their freelance hours two weeks ahead at most.
Equally, the provider may need nursing at a location for four hours every day for three days a week for two months.
Or two hours every day - or any combination of the above !

MY OFF THE CUFF THINKING:
I see a "diary matching" app to link the clients needs to the suppliers availability. And I'd like to make it VERY easy for each party to use.
Lovey calendar interface with all their needs and requirements dealt with intuitively (very "Mac" if you now what I mean).
The issues I see are that the client may have multiple needs on the same day (difficult to display on a calendar).
The nurses want to book (and cancel) at short notice.

There's money involved in all this of course so a booking involves a fee attributable to a nurse, a reference to that booking which needs
to feed and populate a billing system (to the provider).

ohhhh - the more I write the more confused I become....

So I would REALLY appreciate any tips or experience anyone has of this kind of system because
I am a junior php developer and although I've done big databases and membership systems, the mix and match vibe of this scares me !

Happy new year to everyone

Best wishes
Tony
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