Is it time to get rid of 12 hour shifts?

[country mom]

I'm interested in a discussion on the topic of 12 hour shifts, and I surmise there will be some strong feelings both for and against. I love a good debate. Do you think it would be better to get rid of the 12 hour shifts that have become quite standard on many nursing units?

The pro's: - some nurses like compressed work weeks in regards to child care, "having a life", etc.,

- less commute time

- more days open to moonlight somewhere else

- more days away from the workplace

The con's: - some studies show an association with increased errors on shifts longer than 8 hours.

- going 12 hours without eating/bathroom break is harder than going 8 hours without eating/bathroom break

- greater physical exhaustion after 12 hours, my legs don't hold up as well now as they did when I was a newbie in my 20's.

Just wondering what others thought.:typing

[ikimiwi]

I was happily working my 3 10 hour shifts, some with their 8 hours snf some 12". then our new nurse manager decided everyone will have to work 3 12, no other way! I sais I would do 2 12 but with my arthrits ands knee inj, 3 would definatly kill me. I work in a very busy ed, start runnung when I get there, and can barely walk to car when I leave. So now I am in the Birrthing center with my 3 8 hours. I probally should have stayed, worked 3 12 and in 3 months been down on disability. I was so tired after 10 hours, esp when most of the time no lunch or breaks because we are so slammed. ther big thing is of course patient satisfaction, truthfully during my last few hours on after a couple days, a get a little testy, grtting you another warm blanket every 15 min is not making me smile. 12 hpur shifts are for the young. they want to keep experienced nurses in the ED, dont force us to work 12.5 of us "older" nurses left. They now only havemabey 4 nurses who have been there long enough to do triage, only a couple able to work in the trauma room. the rest are new grads barely offf orientationand a few with about 1 year experience. Who is going to be their resources, their mentors. I was sad to go,but every thing happens for a reason.

This is a whole new land up in birthing..........kind of scary, even for an old ED nurse!

wish me luck!!

[WickedRedRN, BSN, RN]

I personally like doing my 3 12's and having the rest of the week to myself, but it never works out like I would like. I want mine 3 in a row, but somehow I always get my days split and it winds up being harder on me and the family.

Hubby works 3-12 so I handle all evening homework and activities for our daughter. It is 1045 here and I *just* got her to bed because of all the homework drama. For that reason alone I backed down to 2 12's and will fill in 8's to get my time. I hope I can get the shifts else I will be working agency to fill in shifts and I hate counting on agency work.

[Dierdre]

I hate 12s. Period. There is no redeeming quality to them whatsoever. I never got more days off with 12s anyway. I will never work at a facility that does not offer 8 hour shifts.

[futrarmyCRNA]

I think we should have the option of doing 12's or 8's or even others, like job sharing. 12's are extremely long if you work nights; foget the extra days off- you will be one of the undead on your days off.

Find a place that still works 8's but most cannot do both. You obviously have never been a manager or have had to do staffing. Mixing up the shifts like this would never work on most hospital floor or units where I live. First of all no one I know wants to work 3-11, especially 5 days a week. Where I work, it seems only the older or part-time nurses want 8 hour shifts due to the fact they don't have to put in 5 days a week. The full-time staff has by and large, all over, wanted 12's due to getting FT hours and 2 more days off a week. Trying to staff with a mix of 8's and 12's leaves someone working a 4 hr shift or someone having to pull a 16, or just leaving the unit short. 8's will never make their way back as the prime staffing shift. 12's are here to stay.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

This goes to show that a wise facility will try to be as flexible and creative as possible to better use its diverse workforce.

[OgopogoLPN, LPN, RN]

I personally LOVE 8's and will only work 8's. But there are those who will only work 12's.

I think that the option should be given and I would bet that sick calls and absentee calls would drop dramtically if nurses could self schedule. Those who like overnights, those who want 8's, those who want 12's, those who want 3-11 etc. Even those who WANT weekends.

It might be a bit sticky to sort out right in the beginning, but I bet it would be so smooth after the initial time. Moral would be up, burn out would be down. Etc.

Just my

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

I hate 12s. Period. There is no redeeming quality to them whatsoever. I never got more days off with 12s anyway. I will never work at a facility that does not offer 8 hour shifts.

No redeeming quality whatsoever? Seriously? Perhaps you haven't read the input from the many who feel otherwise.

And if you never got more days off working 12's, sounds like you either got suckered in to extra shifts frequently, or just willingly did overtime. Either way, it was your decision to do more than you should have, not the problem with the shift hours.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Find a place that still works 8's but most cannot do both. You obviously have never been a manager or have had to do staffing. Mixing up the shifts like this would never work on most hospital floor or units where I live. First of all no one I know wants to work 3-11, especially 5 days a week. Where I work, it seems only the older or part-time nurses want 8 hour shifts due to the fact they don't have to put in 5 days a week. The full-time staff has by and large, all over, wanted 12's due to getting FT hours and 2 more days off a week. Trying to staff with a mix of 8's and 12's leaves someone working a 4 hr shift or someone having to pull a 16, or just leaving the unit short. 8's will never make their way back as the prime staffing shift. 12's are here to stay.

I find this VERY surprising. Every facility I know of has both 8 and 12 hour shifts. Every one. And the problem with staffing is the same no matter WHAT the shift: day people cry they don't have enough staff. Evening people do the same. As does nights. Doesn't matter what LENGTH shift you have, just how many people you have at any given point, and how much staffing is willing to accomodate personal schedules and the needs of the unit.

At this point in time, I think every shift is down a nurse or two at ANY given time.

I'm thinking of going per diem just to avoid the scheduling drama!

[woknblues]

This is copy paste of mine from another thread, about this very thing. If you don't mind.

This topic interests me a great deal.

I see the logic behind some European workdays that revolve around a "siesta type" arrangement, with a 2-3 hour "unpaid" break in the middle of your day. With shift work, the management staggers the shift so there is adequate coverage at all times. You can eat, do an errand or two and have a nap, then finish off your day strong. With a 12 hour shift, I suppose there would be little time to do anything else, besides go home and sleep. I wouldn't mind a longer break myself. I find a 30 minute break to be very unfulfilling. I hate eating that fast, can't have a conversation with anyone. Maybe 10 hour "actual work" shifts instead?

Since I don't / can't sleep during "work time", my vote is for 4 X 10 hour shifts per week, with 2.5 hour breaks at a "mid point" to equal time of 12.5 hours in total, but only 10 worked.

Consider the following 10 hour shift options, for example...

5am-5:30pm (off between 8:30am-11am) (can go have a good breakfast, stop by the bank, nap, etc, home in time for family)

5pm-5:30am (off between 8:30pm-11pm) (can go eat dinner, watch some TV, shoot pool, nap)

7am-7:30pm (off between 11:30am-2pm) (can eat lunch, go grocery shopping, nap, home in time for family)

7pm-7:30am (off between 11:30pm-2am) (go to Starbucks, shoot some pool, watch late night TV, talk to friends/family/internet, nap, etc)

I would happily work any of those shifts on a weekly basis, 4 days a week. I think a person could very easily adjust to that kind of shift. Even nights. In my 20s, I would have loved the 4th shift. I would have kept in sync all week long!

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

This is copy paste of mine from another thread, about this very thing. If you don't mind.

This topic interests me a great deal.

I see the logic behind some European workdays that revolve around a "siesta type" arrangement, with a 2-3 hour "unpaid" break in the middle of your day. With shift work, the management staggers the shift so there is adequate coverage at all times. You can eat, do an errand or two and have a nap, then finish off your day strong. With a 12 hour shift, I suppose there would be little time to do anything else, besides go home and sleep. I wouldn't mind a longer break myself. I find a 30 minute break to be very unfulfilling. I hate eating that fast, can't have a conversation with anyone. Maybe 10 hour "actual work" shifts instead?

Since I don't / can't sleep during "work time", my vote is for 4 X 10 hour shifts per week, with 2.5 hour breaks at a "mid point" to equal time of 12.5 hours in total, but only 10 worked.

Consider the following 10 hour shift options, for example...

5am-5:30pm (off between 8:30am-11am) (can go have a good breakfast, stop by the bank, nap, etc, home in time for family)

5pm-5:30am (off between 8:30pm-11pm) (can go eat dinner, watch some TV, shoot pool, nap)

7am-7:30pm (off between 11:30am-2pm) (can eat lunch, go grocery shopping, nap, home in time for family)

7pm-7:30am (off between 11:30pm-2am) (go to Starbucks, shoot some pool, watch late night TV, talk to friends/family/internet, nap, etc)

I would happily work any of those shifts on a weekly basis, 4 days a week. I think a person could very easily adjust to that kind of shift. Even nights. In my 20s, I would have loved the 4th shift. I would have kept in sync all week long!

Except that the current standard for 12 hour shifts has us working ALL of that, with the exception of 15-minute breaks and 30-min meal breaks. Let's not discuss those who just don't GET their mandated breaks; that's another story.

There IS no "adequate coverage" to cover my patients if I were to be gone for 2.5 hours in the middle of my shift! As it is, we're usually staffed so thinly that I barely get done what I need to get done before my shift ends---and I don't schedule ANY breaks. I take a few minutes where I need to, of course, but otherwise, it's ridiculous to imagine that I could leave for 2.5 hours and expect to get out on time.

The 'siesta scheduling' might work in other industries, in other places, at various times. It can't work in hospitals if we're understaffed to start with.

If we're voting on this dream scenario as a real option, though, I'd have to stick with my current plan: three 12's and I'm out the door. No wandering around the 24-hour Wal-Mart for two hours until it's time to go back to work (four nights a week!) for me. I kinda like my downtime to be at home, with family...not waiting to punch back in.

[IndySkies]

When I was first a nurse, (in the mid to late 70s), the Evening shift was the shift that the 'newbies' and the young nurses had, (i.e., those in their 20s). It was okay if you were a partier, you could hit the bars and/or parties after work, go home and sleep it off before you had to go to work the next afternoon.

But forget about ever seeing your family in the evening in any meaningful way. Later when I became an ADON at a LTC facility I found that the hardest shift(s) to cover is the Friday evening shift.

There are other advantages to an 8 hour evening shift, only one meal to deal with, hs care and pre-op baths, ect. Usually less exams, med passes, and procedures, but I would never go back to five days a week 3-11 shifts.

A 12 hour shift usually allows for more actual patient interactions in a somewhat less intense, gotta get tasks and paper work done type of situations. More days off is a big plus. (It has got to be advantageous to the 'suits' also, or they would never have offered it, or allow it to continue).

The fact of being tired after 12 rather that 8 hours I think is a negative I guess, but I remember being much more tired and stressed out about how I am going to get all my work, (and paperwork), done in 8 hours that seemed to be a day-to-day thing, five days a week "once more into the breech my friends, and fill the wall with our British dead", than I usually feel after a 12 hour shift.

The complaint about not being able to eat or 'go to the bathroom' for 12 hours as opposed to 8, well...that is a lack of self-assertion and allowing yourself to be a martyr than a real objection to 12 hour shifts

But, there will never be an abolishment of the 12 hour shifts. Too many 'working stiffs' like it..Too many employers see the advantages for it for it to ever to be done away with.

[woknblues]

except that the current standard for 12 hour shifts has us working all of that, with the exception of 15-minute breaks and 30-min meal breaks. let's not discuss those who just don't get their mandated breaks; that's another story.

there is no "adequate coverage" to cover my patients if i were to be gone for 2.5 hours in the middle of my shift! as it is, we're usually staffed so thinly that i barely get done what i need to get done before my shift ends---and i don't schedule any breaks. i take a few minutes where i need to, of course, but otherwise, it's ridiculous to imagine that i could leave for 2.5 hours and expect to get out on time.

the 'siesta scheduling' might work in other industries, in other places, at various times. it can't work in hospitals if we're understaffed to start with.

if we're voting on this dream scenario as a real option, though, i'd have to stick with my current plan: three 12's and i'm out the door. no wandering around the 24-hour wal-mart for two hours until it's time to go back to work (four nights a week!) for me. i kinda like my downtime to be at home, with family...not waiting to punch back in.

whenever i hear the term "the current standard", it just makes me think up better ideas.

i hope i didn't offend you with all that ridiculous imagining, but just because management does not do this in your facility, does not make it impossible. staggering shifts happen in other countries/industries. it happens so that people don't just "get their shift over with", to actually a) enjoy what they do, b)perform optimally within a certain number of hours, and c) live life every day, instead of going 12 hour robot, 12 hour sleep for 3 days, then taking a day to recover/laundry, then wondering what happened the last 4 days. offer 8s offer 10s offer 12s. why the heck not? because it is easier is not really acceptable, is it? or is it?!

i am no stranger to long shifts myself, for the record.

some live to work, others work to live. a 4 day work week isn't exactly "stretching it out" is it? anywho......