4 hour shifts

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Hi everyone. I'm a nurse from central Wisconsin and at our hospital we have lots of trouble when nurses get reallocated for four hour shifts. Theres just not enough time to get all the work done in four hours. It's especially bad if your working an eight hour shift and have to work two floors for four hours each. I've been trying to do some research about the quality of patient care when nurses are assigned for only four hour shifts but I haven't had any success finding any good factual research, in fact, I havent't been able to find any info at all. Does anyone have some insight at to where I can find some research about this topic? Please help!!

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

I don't have any research links, but we frequently switch around assignments in my ER at 4-hr. intervals. It's not a problem, because there's no daily cycle or time schedule to care given in the ER anyway.

What specifically is getting missed on your unit when nurses switch after 4 hours? Perhaps we can help. :)

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Specializes in Internal Medicine Unit.

I don't have any insight into research, but I'd be interested in anything that you find. I work med/surg, 12 hour shifts. On one particularly bad day that I had, I started on my floor with 6 pts, was pulled to another floor for the 2nd 4 hours and given 6 pts, and then returned to my floor the last 4 hours to pick up the same team of patients that had changed r/t admissions/discharges. I can tell you from experience that things do get dropped and patient care suffers in the confusion when patient's are shifted from one nurse to the next every 4 hours. On a bad day in med/surg, you may not have even charted your assessments during the first 4 hours of your shift when it's time to leave and go to another floor. I could go on, and on, and on...but it wouldn't answer your need for research, so I'll refrain.

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Specializes in Hospice, Med/Surg, ICU, ER.

Sounds like a dumbazz idea that a non-nurse administrative pencil-pusher came up with. :(

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Specializes in Internal Medicine Unit.
Sounds like a dumbazz idea that a non-nurse administrative pencil-pusher came up with. :(

It's supposed to allow for flexing staffing up and down in relation to the dynamic census throughout the facilty.

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Specializes in Hospice, Med/Surg, ICU, ER.
It's supposed to allow for flexing staffing up and down in relation to the dynamic census throughout the facilty.

Yup... just like I thought. A great idea (on paper) that some bean-counter thought up that doesn't work so well in reality.

It MIGHT make sense to do IF you only rotated the nurses in/out PRN d/t census- and made every effort to only make moves when you had to; not move everyone around just because it is "policy".

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Doesn't make sense and doesn't sound safe either!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

We have a lot of occasions when a 12 hour person is floated for 8 and then has to return to their home floor to take the last 4 hours of a shift. It does truely stink. Noone likes to do it.

Basically you are babysitting all the patients on that team hoping things dont go completely crazy until after your gone for the day. We only have to do one of two things during that 4 hour turnover. Either a progress note, or a total assessment. Choice is ours and that does help. You can write a note on someone you walk in on to take a supper tray. It's getting all the other stuff caught up that still needs to be done like calling any labs from afternoon and getting late surgicals back.

But,, as with anything you have to find a silver lining. So,, look at it this way, if you work the next day you will most likely get that team back and you have a head start because you already know the patients you will have for the day. See there are some good things if you look real real hard.

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