I may be beating a dead horse.....but utterly bewildered!

Lev, MSN, RN, NP · May 22, 2014

Crazy, but not that crazy. My hospital is not making open threats like that, but they aren't hiring in full swing either since we lose money every year to hospitals with higher scores.

There is no logic to it all.

RunninOnCoffee · May 22, 2014

That's what happens when someone with a finance degree and no clinical experience gets to make a staffing grid. And on the rare occasion said person actually has to be admitted they are considered a VIP and you have all of administration coming by to check on them so they never see the results of short staffing. Grrrr

stickit34 · May 22, 2014

My hospital is doing something similar. They went on a hiring freeze and now that we're so short staffed it's worsening the scores even more, they've slowly been hiring nurses. But, we're always told to do more with less in order to get the most reimbursement back. In fact, we're supposed to brainstorm of ideas to cut unit budgets even more. Do you think Nurse's Week made the cut? Nope...

sweetdreame, BSN, RN · May 22, 2014

It is your responsibility to your patients to initiate Safe Harbor or whatever your state requires if there is a situation that is unsafe for a patient. Until the nurses on your unit decide that that is what comes first, nothing will change. You have to change the argument from "this is too many patients for me to handle" to "this is an unsafe situation for my patients". Start filling out incident reports when things inevitably go wrong and if you truly feel unsafe, follow the guidelines set forth by your state board of nursing. Don't allow yourself to be placed in a such a situation.

In my opinion, the ball is in your court.

emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B · May 22, 2014

This falls under the management philosophy of "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

malamud69, BSN, RN · May 22, 2014

ALL hospitals....remeber its all about the bottom line/$$$$ When did you think-in the eyes of management/corporate interest-that it was ever about quality patient care??? It is meerly a great example of divide and conquer. ..why again are so many people against unionization? That to me is where the word "illogical" comes to mind.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · May 22, 2014

I do not see how a union can help a hospital make or spend more money, increase employee/patient satisfaction or guarantee quality care. They generally protect the unproductive worker. Nurses need to be involved with their state nursing association and get laws passed protecting patients from insufficient staffing, mandatory overtime, whistleblowing---hospitals may need to have less chiefs and more Indians.

Ayvah, RN · May 22, 2014

Isn't the CNA/NNOC considered a nursing union though? They've been instrumental in nurse-patient ratios.

mizfradd, CNA · May 22, 2014

"We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little for so long, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."

- Konstantin Josef Jireček

And management wants to keep it that way. :sniff:

Remember, the better you do the more they expect.

:oornt:

Dranger · May 22, 2014

My hospital does the same thing. We sent two nurses home when we weren't hitting the productivity mark on the grid because of "low" census even though there were 50 patients int he ED. Guess what? We filled up within 2 hours and they had to call those nurses back for OT......really?

vintage_RN, BSN, RN · May 22, 2014

^^same thing happened to us the other day. Our census was low, so they sent 2 nurses home...even though there were 5 ORs booked for that day. We ended up getting slammed and scrambling for staff. We have morning huddles every day and this was brought up by the staff that it might not be a good idea...but of course they didn't listen!