Slipstream ER vs QGenda — which fits an emergency department?

QGenda and Slipstream ER both put names on an ER calendar. That is about where the overlap ends.

QGenda is provider workforce infrastructure. Founded in 2006 in Atlanta and acquired by Hearst in August 2024 from Francisco Partners and ICONIQ Growth, it now sits inside Hearst Health.¹ As of August 2026 it reports 4,500+ customer organizations and 700,000+ providers across 45+ specialties.² The platform is ProviderCloud: ten modules covering Workforce Scheduling, On-Call, Time & Attendance, Credentialing, Payer Enrollment, Clinical Capacity Management, Residency Management, and Workforce Analytics.³

Slipstream ER is the other kind of product. It was built by a practicing ER physician, for ER groups. It generates a full balanced monthly schedule in seconds, regenerates as requests change, and treats rest-after-nights, approved time off, and shift restrictions as hard constraints. Core is $49.99 per month for a single site of up to 30 providers. Pro is $99 per month for up to 50 providers.

If you are a 40-hospital system consolidating credentialing, scheduling, and payroll onto one vendor, this comparison is not for you. Keep reading if you schedule one emergency department and want a written price, a same-day trial, and a calendar you can rebuild when the request pile moves.

Side-by-side comparison

The table below is dated August 2026. QGenda wins several rows on purpose. A 20-year enterprise product with 164 G2 reviews and an iOS app rated by about 14,000 people is not a spreadsheet. It is a real platform with real customers.⁴

Prefer to read pricing first? See published Core and Pro plans.

Where the difference actually shows up

Nobody switches schedulers because a homepage has nicer adjectives. They switch because the quote, the implementation calendar, or the scope of the product no longer matches the department they actually run.

Cost and how you find out what it costs

Slipstream ER publishes its price: $49.99 a month for Core, $99 a month for Pro. The 30-day trial does not ask for a card.

QGenda does not publish a price. As of August 2026, that is confirmed on Capterra, G2, and Software Advice: no listed plan, no free trial, no free version.⁴⁵ You find out what it costs by talking to sales. That is normal for a ten-module platform aimed at systems. It is a real cost of evaluation if you are an ED director who just wants to know the monthly line item before the next medical-staff meeting.

G2 buyer data, as of August 2026, rates QGenda’s cost level “very high,” reports an average discount of 8%, and estimates a 16-month ROI period.⁴ G2 also notes the product is most cost-effective for organizations with 50+ providers or 200+ staff across multiple locations.⁴ That is a useful tell. If your roster is a single ED under 50 people, you are not the buyer that quote was designed around.

Recurring reviewer language on cost is blunt. One G2 theme, quoted as it appears in public reviews, is “hidden costs behind every door.”⁴ That is a reviewer complaint, not a ledger. Treat it that way. Ask QGenda what is in the quote and what is an add-on. Then compare that number to a published $49.99 or $99.

Time to a working schedule

G2 buyer data reports an implementation timeline of approximately four months.⁴ Reviewers also describe “the complex setup process time-consuming and demanding due to extensive custom development.”⁴ For a health system wiring scheduling to payroll, credentialing, and an EHR, four months is a project. For a single ED that needs next month’s calendar, four months is a season of nights assigned by hand while you wait.

Slipstream ER is built around a same-day trial. Import providers from QGenda, Lightning Bolt, or CSV. Confirm shift types, rest rules, and contracts. Generate. That is not an implementation program. It is the product doing the job you opened it to do.

QGenda’s longer clock is not a failure. Custom development is how you get 85+ integrations and a system that talks to Epic and Workday.² You pay for that clock when you need those pipes. You should not pay for it when you do not.

Depth vs breadth

ProviderCloud is a roll-up, and that is a strength. QGenda acquired Tangier in 2017, OpenTempo in 2019, Shift Admin and Schedule360 in 2021, and New Innovations in 2025.² The emergency-medicine capability is real. It arrived largely through Shift Admin in January 2021, which was already an EM, urgent-care, and hospitalist-focused scheduler. If someone tells you QGenda “doesn’t do the ER,” they have not used the current platform.

Breadth has a cost in the opposite direction. Ten modules across 45+ specialties is how you serve a system. It is also why reviewers ask for more granular rule control, and why some say limited mobile functionality compared with desktop: shift trades that work on a computer cannot always be finished in the app.⁴ Responsive support and high app ratings sit next to those complaints. Both can be true.

Slipstream ER does one specialty on purpose. A nightly rest rule, a nocturnist contract, a holiday ledger that still remembers last December: that is the whole product. There is no credentialing module hiding behind a second SKU, and there is no Workday connector waiting on a statement of work. If you need those, you should not buy this. If you do not need those, you should not buy ten modules to get a fair night rotation.

When QGenda is the better choice

Buy QGenda if it matches the organization you actually run. These are not consolation prizes. They are the cases where a $49.99 ED scheduler is the wrong tool.

• Multi-specialty health systems. Forty-five specialties, on-call, residency, and clinical capacity in one platform is a different job than staffing one emergency department.
• One contract for credentialing, payer enrollment, and time & attendance. Slipstream ER will not do those things. If you want them next to the schedule, ProviderCloud is the better buy.
• You need Epic or Workday in the loop. QGenda lists 85+ out-of-the-box integrations including Epic, Oracle Health, Workday, ADP, UKG, and Amion.² Slipstream ER does not.
• More than 50 providers across multiple sites, especially when G2’s cost-effectiveness note (50+ providers or 200+ staff, multiple locations) sounds like your org chart.⁴
• You already run QGenda well and the pain is not the product. A working enterprise install with payroll tied in is expensive to unwind for a cheaper ED calendar.

QGenda’s genuine strengths are the ones reviewers keep repeating: deep customizability, strong payroll and HRIS integration, credentialing and time tracking in one system, responsive support, and high app-store ratings.⁴⁵ If those sentences describe the problem you walked in with, stop shopping for a lighter scheduler.

Switching from QGenda to Slipstream ER

This is the case Slipstream ER was built for: an ED that already lives in QGenda, does not need the rest of ProviderCloud, and wants next month’s calendar without a four-month project.

You do not have to flip a switch on the first morning. The safest path is to run both for a month. QGenda stays the system of record. Slipstream ER builds the next month beside it. You compare coverage, rest violations, and who drew nights before anyone is asked to log into a new app.

1. Export from QGenda. Pull the current schedule and roster the same way you would for any backup. Slipstream ER is built to take that file.
2. Import into Slipstream ER. Use the QGenda import. CSV is there if you need a cleaner subset. Providers, shift types, and the existing month come across so you are not retyping a 30-person roster.
3. Confirm rules and contracts. Rest-after-nights, approved time off, run-length limits, individual arrangements, and monthly shift counts are hard constraints here, not suggestions. Check them before you generate. This is also when you enter any opening fairness balances you care about. History does not silently invent itself.
4. Generate next month in parallel and compare. Build the upcoming month in Slipstream ER while QGenda remains live. Look at coverage warnings, night and weekend distribution, and the names that used to absorb every holiday. If the draft is worse, you still have QGenda. If it is better, you have a month of evidence before you commit.

Rule-checked swap workflows, personal calendar feeds, and My Schedule pages come after that month, not before it. The first question is whether the engine can cover the board with your real contracts. Everything else is downstream.

Try it on your actual roster

A fair comparison is not a slogan. Import the QGenda file you already trust, set the rules your group already argues about, and generate the month you are about to publish. Thirty days. Up to 50 providers. No credit card.

If QGenda is still the better fit after that month, you will know why: modules, integrations, or a system-wide contract. If it is not, you will have a schedule instead of another quote.