12-Hour Strategies For Nurses

Whether or not mandatory overtime is required varies from facility to facility. Like many other issues, there are both pros and cons to this topic. Witkoski,S, Sloane, D, and Aiken L (2012) did a study and concluded that nurses who worked 10 or more hours a shift were more likely to experience burnout and were dissatisfied with their jobs with an intent on quitting. Burnout can affect the quality of care a nurse provides to patients. Burnout can be the cause of a nurse not noticing subtle changes of patients which could potentially lead to patient neglect. Although there are cons to working long shifts there are some pros. When nurses work 12hour shifts, they often meet or exceed their weekly hours over the course of a 3day work week. Since they would only be working a three-day work week, it provides nurses with a better work-life balance and flexibility (Witkoski,S, Sloane, D, and Aiken L 2012), giving nurses more time outside of their job to do whatever they would like. Getting this kind of flexibility is great for nurses like myself who are either back in school or have families to take care of, or just need a little more time to recover and

In the nursing profession, especially when working in a hospital, it is not uncommon to have 12-hour nursing shifts,

Self-scheduling is an aspect of nursing that has been considered for quite some time. Prior to discussing the pros and cons of this particular practice, it is necessary to briefly elucidate some of the reasons why organizations and nurses have experimented with this technique in the past. The goal of self-scheduling, of course, is largely synonymous with the goal of assigned scheduling to fully staff a particular health care organization so that it can deliver the best care possible to its patients. The primary difference between these two methods, however, is that the former affords nurses greater authority and autonomy (Pecci, 2012) in this process, by allowing them to determine the times that are most convenient for individuals to fulfill this goal. As such, there are a number of benefits and detrimental aspects of letting nurses determine their own schedules. Some tangible pros include allowing nurses to better manage their personal and private lives, reducing the work load and the amount of stress nurse managers deal with, and overall improving the scheduling and staffing process; common cons include staff unavailability, preferentialism, and pressure to adhere to the wishes of a bevy of others (Bailyn et al, 2007, p. 73).

In the past two decades, a lot of changes have been characterised in the healthcare working systems. One of these changes has been the assimilation of shift work systems and the flexibility in work schedules. The need for 24 hour care makes the healthcare professions to work with different shift systems such as 12 h, 8 h, 9 h or 10 hour shifts. However, the common shift work systems divide a 24-h day in two (12-h) or three (8-h) shifts. Nonetheless, this requires the staff to be adapted with the various forms of shift work schedules.

Moreover, most shifts run into each other with day shifts extending into the night and night shifts extending into the day. This means that their circadian rhythms are distorted. Extended shift work for nurses eventually lead to them finding it difficult to adapt to normal life or any activities outside work.

Does one ever think about the words “required” or “extended work shifts”? To countless nurses these terminologies or jargons mean mandatory overtime. In today’s healthcare, “required” overtime has sky rocketed, attributable to, the nursing shortages throughout the United States. Studies have revealed that working “extended work shifts or additional shifts” have a negative impact on both patient and nurse safety. The purpose of this paper is to inform and advocate for the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act. This author will discuss the key points, provide a critique of empirical evidence, and demonstrate the importance and impact of this Act to the nursing profession.

Within the recent years, hospitals and medical facilities have been experiencing nursing shortages that necessitate more nurses to be present to compensate for the care needed to be given. This requires nurses to be dealt with imperative extended work hours along with their normal shifts with no denial or excuse accepted. Working extra hours are accompanied with negative effects that have an impact on the nurse, coworkers, and patients. A major concern that occurs with overtime is that nurses become fatigued or burnout. Fatigue that is experienced is a result of sleep deprivation from working overtime that is associated with arduousness neurobehavioral functioning

Patients in a hospital and/or healthcare facilities have to be cared for all day and all night, everyday of the week by nurses. The usual way to fulfill this need is to divide up the day into three 8-hour shifts. Different shifts have been put into place to help improve nurse satisfaction, decrease the nursing shortage and save the hospital money. The 24-hour day is made up of two 12-hour shifts; 12 hours in the day and 12 hours at night. There has been quite an ongoing debate over the years regarding this issue of nurses working over 8 hours in a single day. Many people, such as hospital nursing administrators, have reason to believe that working long hour shifts causes more errors in

Various factors have negatively influenced the nursing field. Those factors involve, but not limited to staff shortage, staffing ratios, mandatory overtime, violence issues, etc. In 2011, 16 states established limitations on the practice of mandatory overtime operated by nurses (ANA, 2011). Forced overtime laws monitor either nurse mandatory overtime or cumulative work hours. As prevention for nurses working mandatory overtime, state law permits employees to decline the offer of overtime by healthcare organizations, except during a medical emergency, which requires increased need for medical personnel unexpectedly. The overall goal of achieving mandatory overtime regulations is to produce supported practicing circumstances for nurses, as well as improve the quality of care for the patients.

Mandatory overtime has become an increasing problem for nurses who work in many hospital settings. Mandatory overtime is defined as additional hours added to a nurse’s current shift, making the nurse feel as if it’s a threat of being fired or disciplinary action will be taken in some form if they refuse to stay and work. Extensive overtime studies have established and confirmed that there are serious dangers to both the nurse and the patient being cared for in all types of healthcare settings.

The risks of making an error were significantly increased when work shifts were longer than twelve hours, when nurses worked overtime, or when they worked more than forty hours per week. (Trossman, 2009). Working longer hours in a high stress area will always increase the error rate. Designating an adequate number of RN positions to ensure nurses work an appropriate schedule without overtime and that their workload allows for breaks. Managerial staff must work to develop specific policies about the length of work times based on the setting, patient and provider needs. Those policies should limit nurses from working more than 12.5 consecutive hours. Provide education for all care providers on the hazards and causes of fatigue. Continue to document unsafe staffing conditions and work with others to change the current work culture so that it recognizes the effects of fatigue on patient safety, as well as the nurse. (Berger, et al. 2006)

Limited attention has been paid to the hours worked by nurses, or the effects of these hours on patient safety (Rogers, 2008). Even though most nurses favor 12- hour shifts and overtime, it is associated with difficulties staying awake during times of duty, reduced sleep times, and triple the risk of making an error (Rogers, 2008). The most significant risk of making an error occurred when nurses were scheduled to work 12.5 hours or more.

For some nurses, mandatory overtime can be an advantage due to financial instability but mostly mandatory overtime can cause fatigue, burnout, injuries, errors, inadequate sleep and deficits in performance. According to research working long hours which consists more than 40 hours a week or over 12 hours a day leads to an increased medication errors and patient mortality. The probability of making medication errors increases tremendously when nurses work longer than 12.5 hours a day. During surveys regarding reasons of overtime, 60 % of nurses stated that overtime was obligatory as part of their job, 29 % of nurses stated that they volunteered and 41% of nurses stated that they were “on call hours” (Bae, 2012)

To begin with, nurses must work long hours at a time. Nurses, RN’s, must work long hours. They would have to work long shifts, weekends, nights, and holidays, if possible. The RN 's can only get around the long hours by working for a private company. One of my friends is a nurse, she works at St. Lucie Medical Center on the night shift. However, because she works nights she feels like she is not a real person, like her life is consumed with sleeping. So, she has decided to switch her hours to the day shift instead of the night shift. If one nurse feels like she was not a real person, then many other people must feel that way too. Another story about my friend, she just finished working a thirteen-hour night shift. She did not get much

The first topic focused on in an article by Stimpfel et al. (2012) looked at the effect of longer shifts on nurses. Compared to the past, nurses are working twelve-hour shifts, instead of eight-hour shifts. The reason for these changes in shift lengths is for it to allow for nurses to have more flexibility in their schedules and to give them more time at home. This study revealed that the hours actually worked by nurses are unpredictable. Due to the fluctuations of patient needs and unanticipated staffing on the unit, leads to nurses having to work over their scheduled time (Stimpfel et al. 2012). This study also pointed out that there are no national policies for nurses that dictate the maximum number of hours a nurse can work. Nurses often end up working several hours over their shift because they feel forced into working those hours and thereby leading to burnout.