Setting up an online driving schedule

November 30, 2009 4:48 PM

Help me create an online driving schedule for friends/family to get a patient to and from far-away medical appts. Is there a better system than Google calendar?

My uncle has chemo every other week, lives far from the hospital and has many friends and family willing to help him get to appointments. I've offered to help set up a calendar and "sign-up" system for driving him.

My current plan is to set up a Google calendar. It would be visible to all family/friends and a few of us could edit it. Then I'm thinking I would e-mail the group every couple months, have people look at the calendar, e-mail me with the shifts they could take and I would update the calendar. Then, I would have a reminder set up in Google to remind them a couple days in advance.

Has anyone else done this before? Am I overlooking major details? What worked and what didn't for you? Is there a better system than Google to work with? Did you allow edit access to all viewers or have them go through you to take a driving shift?

Thanks!

posted by JannaK to travel & transportation (2 answers total)

There's a site called Lotsa Helping Hands that is set up for just this purpose. You create a community and invite people to join and sign up for shifts/driving/meals/etc. It has lots of other features in addition to the calendar--blogs, messaging, picture hosting, etc. I was a member of a community for someone and it seemed to work pretty well, but I wasn't involved in setting it up so I can't speak to how easy it is to work with.
posted by min at 6:07 PM on November 30, 2009

I would have a reminder set up in Google to remind them a couple days in advance.

There should be a way for them to confirm that they will be driving him. What if some of these family/friends don't check their email often, or their computer or internet access is down?

He will probably have appointments that he does not have 2 month's notice on, or may have things come up where he thought he would go home the same day but need to be in the hospital overnight. Maybe keep a list of people with more flexible schedules?

No suggestions on the software, I just wandered in to see the answers.
posted by yohko at 5:03 PM on December 1, 2009