What the two-calendar check shows
- A shift you're offered: whether it fits, what it would clash with, the hours off before and after it, and how it changes your busiest 7 days. Add it before you say yes.
- Double-booked shifts: a shift at one job that overlaps a shift at another, and by how long.
- Back-to-back shifts: one starts the moment another job's ends, with no time to get from one to the other.
- Quick returns: less than 11 hours off between shifts, between jobs or at one job. Each one gives both days and times, and says when it follows a run of nights.
- Short recovery after nights: a day or evening shift less than 48 hours after your last night of a run of 2 or more. In studies of shift workers, one day off after nights wasn't enough to recover, and two usually were.
- All your jobs as one schedule: average hours a week, the most hours in any 7 days, night shifts and the most days in a row, and every shift in the next 4 weeks by day. Back-to-back shifts count as one stretch of work, and double-booked hours count once.
Warnings look 12 weeks ahead and say when a calendar ends sooner. Hours, nights and runs of days cover the last 4 weeks and the next 4. A shift counts as a night when it covers at least half of night hours, 22:30 to 06:30, the 8 hours when the most people are asleep: 19:00 to 07:00 does, and so does 19:00 to 03:00.
Only shifts in the calendars count, and entries of 3 hours or more, such as a conference block, count as shifts. Shifts named call, like "Night call" or "24-hour call", count too. On call, backup, standby, jeopardy and sick call, and entries under 3 hours, are set aside until you tick the box under that calendar, which lists them. All-day entries, such as vacation or a week off, are skipped: they have no start or end time. To check one calendar in more detail, use the schedule check.
For residents
Moonlighting counts toward your 80 hours, and first-year residents may not moonlight (6.25). Tick the box under the results and pick your specialty to check the ACGME duty-hour rules on all your jobs together; your other jobs count in every rule. Only you see the results.
Where to find a calendar link or file
In your scheduling app, look for Sync, Subscribe, iCal or Calendar feed, and copy the link that starts with webcal:// or https://, or download the .ics file. If your shifts are in another calendar, these pages show where to look: Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar, and how to export a calendar file.
What happens to the calendars
Capillary Health, which makes scheduling software for hospitals and clinics, runs this check for free, with no account needed. It isn't connected to any hospital or department that uses Capillary.
A calendar file stays on your device: your browser reads it. Shifts you type stay on your device too.
For a calendar link, Capillary's server fetches the calendar once and reads entry names only to set aside on call, backup and sick call, and meetings and other short entries. It sends your browser each entry's start and end time and which ones it set aside, never names, places or notes. The server keeps neither the link nor the shifts, and doesn't log the link.
Your browser does all the checking. The results stay on this page: Capillary doesn't save them or send them to anyone, including your employer, program or department.
Anyone who has a calendar link can see the shifts in it, so don't post one anywhere public.
Common questions
- Can I check three calendars?
- Yes. Add a third calendar under the first two, and every number covers all three.
- Why 11 hours?
- It's the cutoff fatigue research uses: with less than 11 hours off, people sleep less before the next shift. The other checks on this site use it too. The ACGME says residents should have at least 8 hours off.
- How do I check a shift I'm offered?
- Once one calendar is in, add it under "Try a shift you're offered" with the job, date and times; pick "A new job" if it's somewhere with no calendar here. The results open with whether it fits. Remove it to see your schedule without it.
- What happens to all-day entries like vacation?
- They're skipped. An all-day entry has no start or end time, so it never counts as a shift or a clash.