22 May 2025
Concurrent Jobs: Designed for the Way Work Actually Happens
Hospitals don’t run in straight lines—neither should dispatching. Concurrent Jobs lets agents handle more than one task at a time, intelligently and safely. This feature helps hospitals reclaim lost minutes, reduce idle time, and scale operations—without adding pressure or people. Because better flow isn’t chaos. It’s clarity.
Piyorot Piyachan
CEO of Mutrack
In hospitals, work rarely follows a clean, linear path. An agent or porter doesn’t just walk a patient from point A to point B and then sit idle until the next job. An interpreter doesn’t finish one session and immediately disappear. In reality, agents move through space, wait in hallways, stay on standby, and encounter small but meaningful opportunities to help again.
That’s the insight behind Concurrent Jobs.
The Problem with One-Job-at-a-Time Logic
Before this update, Dispatcher allowed only one active job per agent. This was a reasonable assumption when handling time-sensitive, high-focus tasks. It kept the system clean. But it also introduced unnecessary rigidity.
In real hospitals, idle time isn’t just common—it’s built into the flow. An agent might drop off a patient near the lab and then wait 10 minutes before returning. During that gap, they could easily handle a document delivery or a specimen run. But without concurrent capability, the system would block that opportunity.
Multiply that across a team of 30 agents, and you're looking at hours of untapped capacity every day. As we explored in our previous article, "Why Internal Job Delays Cost More Than You Think," even small delays add up to massive inefficiencies. When every task is sequential, the system loses time between jobs. With hundreds or thousands of jobs per day, the delay isn't in the job itself—it's in the handoff.
That’s what Concurrent Jobs is designed to fix.
Concurrent Jobs: A More Human-Centered Approach
Concurrent Jobs lets Dispatcher assign a second task to an agent already on a job—but only when it makes sense. The system evaluates:
1
Workload demand
2
Job cycle weight (how intense or time-consuming the task is)
3
Location proximity
4
Timing overlaps
It’s not just about doing more. It’s about using the in-between moments better. Think of it like an airport ground crew that knows when to refuel a plane, clean the cabin, and load baggage all at once—instead of in strict sequence. Hospitals deserve that level of operational intelligence too.
Smart Configuration = Safe Execution
You control how concurrency works in your hospital. Dispatcher lets you set job-specific concurrency rules:
And here’s the truth: the cost of these delays isn’t just in minutes. It’s in:
Not Allowed
One job at a time, strictly enforced
Same Type
Allow only additional jobs of the same category (e.g. 2 document runs)
All Types
Open to any combination of jobs
You can also assign a Job Cycle Ratio to every job type. Think of it like a workload weight. A quick lab drop might be 1.0, while a full patient transfer could be 1.8. The system uses these ratios to prevent overload and balance queues fairly across your team.
By combining these two settings, Dispatcher becomes more than a job dispatcher—it becomes a real-time workload manager. This enable:
1
Agents can take on light delivery tasks while waiting for a patient to be ready.
2
Interpreters can stay available while in between scheduled sessions.
3
Dispatchers can keep job flow moving without micromanaging.
And most importantly, you reduce idle time without adding stress and increase job completion without hiring more people.
In one hospital we worked with, a typical agent completed around 15 jobs per day. After enabling Concurrent Jobs in selected departments (like document handling and sample transport), agents in those teams began completing up to 20 jobs per day—a 33% increase. That gain wasn’t due to longer hours. It was because Dispatcher started recognizing the value of idle minutes and reclaiming them.
Without this feature, there is simply no way our customer could handle 100,000+ jobs per month with the same level of staffing.
The scale would have collapsed under the weight of sequential logic.
From Software Logic to Operational Logic
We didn’t build Concurrent Jobs to encourage multitasking for the sake of speed. We built it because hospital work is dynamic. Staff are already juggling context, time, and physical space. Dispatcher should help them do that—not get in the way.
This feature doesn’t make the system more complicated. It makes it more honest. It acknowledges what every nurse, supervisor, or agent already knows: that work on the ground is never linear, and every day requires improvisation.
By supporting intentional concurrency, we help that improvisation happen with structure and safety. If you're considering activating Concurrent Jobs, here are three steps to start with:
1
Define concurrency rules by job type: Start with a conservative approach. Enable concurrency for low-risk job types like documents or linen first.
2
Review and adjust cycle ratios: Make sure high-effort jobs are weighted correctly so that Dispatcher doesn’t over-assign. Use 1.0 as your baseline.
3
Monitor feedback from the floor: Ask agents and supervisors whether task switching feels manageable. If not, adjust the thresholds.
It’s not a one-time switch. It’s a tuning process—but one that yields significant gains.
Every Minute Matters
In the article "Why Internal Job Delays Cost More Than You Think," we showed that 7 minutes of wasted time per job could lead to 100+ hours lost per day in a 1,000-job environment. That’s the cost of inaction. Concurrent Jobs is one of the simplest ways to reclaim those hours without additional staffing or overtime.
When your team moves with clarity—and your system moves with them—every minute counts.
Because better coordination doesn’t mean more pressure. It means more possibility. And sometimes, the most powerful innovations are the ones that simply let people work the way they already know how—just more smoothly, with the system finally catching up.
Experience It Firsthand — with No Strings Attached
Traditionally, features like Concurrent Jobs are reserved for higher-tier plans — something only large hospitals can afford. But at Mutrack, we don’t believe in limiting access to better systems.
You get absolutely everything. Every customer. Every feature. From day one.
Whether you manage a small facility or a multi-site hospital, Dispatcher was built to serve your real-world complexity — without conditions or compromise.
You can experience Concurrent Jobs during your First Run. 🎊
No upgrade. No restrictions. Just real results.
Join First Run and see how much smoother your operations can be — in 30 days or less.
Continue Reading
15 February 2025
Piyorot Piyachan
CEO of Mutrack
20 March 2025
Piyorot Piyachan
CEO of Mutrack