Low census--what do you do?

[compassionresearcher]

My current job involves limited direct patient care, so census does not affect me. But I have friends that tell me the unfortunate effects of getting called off and having no money as a result of low census. And I think it's unfair.

Are you called off at your place of work? If yes, how do you prepare for it financially? Does it bother you?

If no, what does your hospital do with extra staff during low census?

[sarbo1010]

Run like hell before a fresh batch of patients hit the ED and they change their minds.

[2blessed2bestressed]

I work for a company who uses the RN's more than the LPN's, so since I'm an LPN I'm often cancelled when the census is low. When I get cancelled, I just hope, pray, and believe that God will

make a way (which He always does)! Sometimes, I have gotten payday loans. I've taken a full time night position to not be cancelled as much as I would if I was PRN...also for the benefits. I was trying to go back to school to get my RN, but unfortunately I'm still pending approval by state boards to go to school because of a 18 year old arrest record.

[Sassafras6]

Our administrator keeps staff at the least amount required by law. When our census goes down, CNA's are cut on a regular basis, even sent home right after arriving to work. Nursing does not get cut as much, but when it happens, it is usually by being sent home early & the remaining staff have to divide up the extra patients. The nurse sent home races to finish up. It would be better to keep staff for mandatory education modules so we would not have to use our personal time at home for it. What usually happens is, all of a sudden we get slammed with admissions, then the remaining staff has to work late to finish documentation & know we are going to be chastised for being poor time managers.

[Garden,RN, ASN, RN]

In the past this has happened to me and to many of my friends and it is awful. Our health care system is very wasteful and we health care workers suffer the consequences. It is wasteful in that we are bogged down with so much that has little to do with patient care and to compensate for the waste, they find other ways to bring their costs down, and often we nurses are it.

[IceDancer]

When I worked in the hospital, years ago, low census call off was by volunteer, per diem, then seniority, usually people were fighting to get called off. We did go thorough a couple of really dry spells, census wise, and during those I actually spoke with our director about revamping some of our patient handouts for certian procedures like bone marrow biopsy or receiving different chemotherapy drugs and she was all for it. That fall I ended up writing all new handouts for patients, the other dry spell I rewrote some chemo administration policies that were outdated. The work is a little dry, but many floors are willing to pay nurses that would otherwise be called off to do that kind of extra work that nobody ever seems to have time for. If you are on a floor getting called off frequently, and you know that there is outdated info for the nurses or patients, talk to management about working on it instead of your usual shift. They may well be willing to pay you for your knowledge and expertise.

[happynurse49, BSN]

Nurses at our hospital do not have to take low census. They ask for volunteers and if no one wants to go--no one has to go. We can float to another department but that seldom happens.

[2blessed2bestressed]

That's awesome

[Nursewifemom]

I got put on call for low census tonight. House sup called at 3 pm and put me on call, called back at 4 pm and said they'd had a bunch of admits and he needed me to be there at 7 pm to take patients. Officially the shortest on call day I've ever had.

[JrhSizemore]

I like the idea of calling people with seniority and asking them if they would like to be off. :) It's a very positive way to go about this problem. People who want to be off get the opportunity and people who need the work get to.

[RainMom]

I got put on call for low census tonight. House sup called at 3 pm and put me on call, called back at 4 pm and said they'd had a bunch of admits and he needed me to be there at 7 pm to take patients. Officially the shortest on call day I've ever had.

I've been called off only to be called back 10-15 minutes later to come in, usually because there was a late call in or another floor was short.

[Swellz]

If another floor is heavy, we'll get pulled. But my manager likes to hide nurses in other roles; on any given weekday, we have a charge nurse, a chemo nurse, and a discharge nurse all out of the count. Not including the manager herself, our clin spec, and our nurse educator if she's working that day. So if we truly have an extra nurse, they will pull someone from the count who is on her list of favorites and ask them to help the chemo or discharge nurses, aka see how much money they can spend at Starbucks that day. I would rather they call me off so I can use up some PTO.

[armyicurn]

I would have told that nurse sup NO. I already started drinking.

I hate management that panic to fast and call people off just to realize 30 minutes later that they really need all hands on deck. I do not condone such thinking. If you tell me I am off, then I go on to do other things as my mind is already made up.