Pulling to other units

[Susan3897]

At the pediatric hospital I work at we can get pulled to any unit after we have worked 6 months at the hospital. Different units have different schedules depending on head nurse preference. Some units have a mixture of 8 and 12 hour sifts. The result is that we can get pulled in the middle of the shift. If you work 3p-11p and another unit is short staffed at 7p you can get pulled to another unit at 7p. It's very difficult to work 4 hours on one unit and try to be done early so you can be on the next unit on time for report. I find it to be terrible patient care. Any other nurse have to work under the same situation.

[brownbook]

I'm very flexible and love to float to other units, but I do hate what you describe.

If it happens frequently, 3-4 times a month, if several, (many), staff are told to change units in the middle of their shift, maybe you can all meet with the director of Nursing and calmly explain how difficult and unsafe this is. Bring facts about how often this happens.

Offer solutions. Maybe a permanent float position can be posted where the float nurse is expected to change from unit to unit as staffing and census changes. I think I've read about such position here in Allnurses. It'd be a nice incentive if this position came with a higher salary.