Would you work this schedule...is it safe?

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Jun 1, 2012

research shows that more than 12 hours is risky for the employer because, whether you agree or not, the chances of you making a mistake become greater. If it is risky for them it is risky for you. I would not push myself to that extent.

Jenni811, RN · Jun 1, 2012

Actually studies haven shown that anything more than 12 in unsafe. there is now research saying anything above 8-10 hours is unsafe. Our hospital is starting to push for 8 hours shifts instead, while allowing 12 hour. they are basically encouraging and giving us the option to go 8 hours. I'm really really thinking about it but worried i will regret my decision.

Zookeeper3 · Jun 1, 2012

I don't know what studies are out there recently. When I worked a low acuity area, I frequently worked my regular 3-11 shift and picked up the 11-7 when they were short. It was low acuity psyc. and most slept at night.

Now recently, I have stayed in the morning until 11am after a 7p-7a shift in the ICU... having the same patients to extend that four hours made it easier... but I WAS very tired driving home. When at work, I'm "in the zone" and seem to stay sharp. The lull of the drive home is another.

It works for me, not everyone goes on little sleep though

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Jun 1, 2012

What you're talking about is a version of the Baylor Plan. In the Baylor Plan, the employee works two double shifts (16 hours) on Saturday and Sunday and has M-F off. In many places, working this schedule means you get paid for a 40 hour week and earn benefits. It's trade off to working every weekend.

I haven't heard of the Baylor Plan used during the weekdays, just as a weekend option.

Here's an older, but still relevant, thread about the Baylor Plan, with some posts from people who have done it. https://allnurses.com/texas-nurses/baylor-plan-253283.html

I'd work this schedule. Probably not every weekend, but I'd definitely do two 16 hour shifts per week. When I work 12's, I really don't see family at all that day anyway. Working two days per week and having 5 off would be great.

FORTHELOVEOF!!!! · Jun 1, 2012

My cousin is a NP and she works two 16's and three 16's alternating weeks in the ICU, she loves it!

RNewbie · Jun 1, 2012

Thanks for posting that link. I could not give up every weekend. I would have to sleep at the hospital if I had to work the shifts back to back!

MJB2010 · Jun 1, 2012

I did 3 per week in dialysis and it was awful. I quit after I dozed off on my drive home. I had less than 4 hours sleep between shifts and they kept scheduling me back to back.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Jun 1, 2012

I imagine some people have the capability to work 16 and stay sharp. That call is up to you.

The few times I pulled that shift.. I felt my mind was still capable ,but the body was weak!

Nursing is NOT about the days off.. it is about your ability to take care of your patients ...on you days ON.

Baylor.. Schmaylor... would they want THEIR nurse taking care of them at the end of a 16 hour shift?

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Jun 1, 2012

Baylor.. Schmaylor... would they want THEIR nurse taking care of them at the end of a 16 hour shift?

The original Baylor plan (the one that Baylor used) was 12 hours. The name just stuck.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Jun 2, 2012

What you're talking about is a version of the Baylor Plan. In the Baylor Plan, the employee works two double shifts (16 hours) on Saturday and Sunday and has M-F off. In many places, working this schedule means you get paid for a 40 hour week and earn benefits. It's trade off to working every weekend.
I haven't heard of the Baylor Plan used during the weekdays, just as a weekend option.
Here's an older, but still relevant, thread about the Baylor Plan, with some posts from people who have done it. https://allnurses.com/texas-nurses/baylor-plan-253283.html
I'd work this schedule. Probably not every weekend, but I'd definitely do two 16 hour shifts per week. When I work 12's, I really don't see family at all that day anyway. Working two days per week and having 5 off would be great.

The "Baylor Plan" was first instituted at the Baylor Hospital system and did not involve 16's. It was two twelve hour shifts on the weekends which paid the nurse the same as working full time during the week. The VA even adopted it as follows (don't know if it is still in place):

e. Baylor Plan. Two regularly scheduled 12-hour tours of duty contained entirely within the period commencing at midnight Friday and ending at midnight the following Sunday approved in accordance with VA Handbook 5007, part VIII, chapter 9.

Other systems have adopted the plan and many changed the shifts to 16's, while still referring to it as the Baylor Plan. I'm not even sure if Baylor even offers either option anymore. A nurse at my Dallas based hospital (not Baylor affiliated) worked that deal years ago, but was the only one I knew who had been able to pull that off.

No way I could do 16's. I just don't have the stamina.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Jun 2, 2012

An interesting look at how the Baylor Plan evolved: the excerpt is from an article entitled "History of Nursing at Baylor University Medical Center" by Linda F. Garner, Ph.D, RN, and Karen Anne Bufton, MS, RN:

Two-days alternative
To help alleviate the persistent nursing shortage and decrease nursing staff dissatisfaction with schedules, BUMC began an innovative approach to weekend staffing in 1981. A two-days alternative plan was implemented, which gave nurses the choice of working two 12-hour shifts on weekends (and receiving pay for 36 hours of work or 40 hours for the night shift) or working five 8-hour days Monday through Friday.
Shirley Shofner, who began as a nursing administrator at BUMC in 1973, was in the late 1970s and early 1980s increasingly concerned about nurse recruitment and, like her colleagues, frustrated by the problems that seemed to defy a solution to the persistent nurse shortage. She recalled that, at some time in 1980, Carlos Maisa, then director of management development at BUMC, brought her a journal article describing how a rubber plant in Akron, Ohio, had solved its staffing problem. The plant created a weekend alternative under which an employee was given 32 hours’ pay for 24 hours’ work if the employee would agree to work 12-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. Two weekends per year were provided as vacation time with pay. Those in the 24-hour weekend positions were treated as full-time employees and received full benefits.
Ms. Shofner and Mr. Maisa worked with the other nursing directors to calculate that the cost of implementing such an option at BUMC would add about $5 per patient day to BUMC’s operating costs. Having spent thousands of dollars in domestic and overseas recruitment of nurses, they believed that the additional direct cost would be justified if the nursing shortage problem could be solved or even alleviated.
The BHCS management council, which included the most senior BUMC and BHCS executives, agreed to try the plan, assigning Robert Hille the responsibility for detailed development and implementation.
The two-days alternative plan was advertised in the Dallas Morning News. Only a small response had been expected, but the day the advertisement appeared, the nurse recruitment office was overwhelmed with telephone calls from nurses who were interested in working under the plan. The heavy response continued for days, and by the end of a month the weekend staffing shortage no longer existed. In addition, weekday staff members no longer were required to work on weekends on a rotation basis, a freedom unheard of for hospital nursing staff members. BUMC had tapped a tremendous staffing source: students attending schools and mothers with small children. A side benefit was a group of weekend nursing staff members who were willing to work at least occasionally during the week as needed (72).
The plan did require a larger total number of nursing staff members. Prior to establishment of the plan, Baylor had a 32% per year turnover rate among nurses and an average of >120 vacant positions. Within 1 week after the plan was announced, >600 nurses inquired about working weekends. Over 200 were hired, and all weekend positions were filled (73). The Baylor Plan was soon copied by many hospitals across the nation and abroad, with newspaper and journal recognition in Canada, England, and Egypt as well as in the USA.
While the plan cost BUMC an average of $5 per patient day, it reduced job dissatisfaction and turnover among nurses. Savings in costs of recruiting and orienting new replacement employees offset the added cost of the plan (74).
Linda Henson Plank, in a 1984 article in American Journal of Nursing devoted to the two-days alternative, reported, “Although there has been no formal study of the Two-days Alternative plan’s impact on either patient care or nurses’ job satisfaction and quality of life, nursing administrators [at BUMC] believe that staff morale has improved and physicians report improved relationships with nurses.” She continued, “Now, after three full years, the plan devised to solve Baylor nurses’ two main job complaints—inadequate staffing and inconvenient scheduling—is considered a definite success” (75).
The plan has continued in use and has weathered many challenges. While other Dallas-area hospitals have had staffing shortages, BUMC and other BHCS hospitals have continued to be well staffed with RNs in most areas. Over the 20 years since the plan was implemented, a high percentage of the nurses hired in the first month of the plan have continued as weekend employees (72, 76, 77). At the close of the century in 2000, 334 fulltime equivalent (FTE) nurses were working under the two-days alternative in BUMC and other components of BHCS.
In addition to the two-days alternative, a BUMC-wide preceptor program was implemented to aid in nurse recruitment and retention. Externships were developed and offered to nursing students during the summer so they could learn more about specific areas of nursing while providing supplemental help to the staff of the specialty unit (78). A day care center was established at BUMC to make it easier for nurses and other employees to work on a full-time or part-time basis while their young children were conveniently cared for."