Staffing

Are you sure its because staffing levels are so great? Or is it really because the companies are cutting staffing costs?

yeah, havent had enough staffing! at least in my full time job. I do have a perdiem job as well that I did get cancelled about a month ago (I only do 2-3 shifts per month there) so who knows.

I know at my hospital, they have cut staffing costs to the point where people are running like mad to get out of there due to frustration, burn out, and lack of safety at times. They call me almost every day off begging me to come in.

It was difficult before trying to get all the work done, now it's impossible.

Great staffing levels must be only at your hospital!!

Hmmmm......not so great where I work......

Wow, where do you wor, I want to come there. Staffing where I am is absolutely horrid lately. We have had a whole week without a charge nurse. They are calling people daily on their days off to ask them if they want to work becuase we are so understaffed.

Ugh!

Not so great where I work. When I left this morning, day shift was down 2 nurses, 1 UA, and a secretary. We've lost one nurse from each shift in the last 2 weeks... 1 voluntary and 2 involuntary.

It's been tough though, because of all of the recent new grads/new hires, only 2 of the 5 are working out. The rest have not been up to par.

We got a cost-of-living "adjustment" just last month which was really nice, so we're pretty competitive for this area. Just can't get and keep good staff.

Why not take a full time job, benefits, and stability.

Looking at it from an Administrator's viewpoint regardless of

the shortages that exist eventually the inordinate cost to

patient outcomes of "per diem" and agency workers will have

to end. It is not cost-effective and lives are lost; either

due to patient care being inconsistent, and or to injuries

to the regular staff who are overburdened with OT requests.

The stress alone is destructive. Just my two cents. Wait

are there pennies left to spend :)

Karen G.

Hmmmm......not so great where I work......

Ditto. In fact, it's horrible!!

Why not take a full time job, benefits, and stability.

Looking at it from an Administrator's viewpoint regardless of

the shortages that exist eventually the inordinate cost to

patient outcomes of "per diem" and agency workers will have

to end. It is not cost-effective and lives are lost; either

due to patient care being inconsistent, and or to injuries

to the regular staff who are overburdened with OT requests.

The stress alone is destructive. Just my two cents. Wait

are there pennies left to spend :)

Karen G.

I don't know if I agree with you that patient outcomes are worse when a facility uses agency or PRN nurses. My facility occassionally uses both, in fact I'm a per diem worker. Most of the PRN and agency nurses I know work full-time hours in the same facility, they just want to get paid more to do it.

When I got canceled a couple of weeks ago(very rare occurence) I was told that the travel nurses now have it written into their contracts that they cannot be canceled(they would be paid anyway if you tried). There is a list in our staffing book of the order of who gets called off first. First in line is regular staff working overtime, next comes per diem nurses.

Maybe that is what is happening where you are.

When I got canceled a couple of weeks ago(very rare occurence) I was told that the travel nurses now have it written into their contracts that they cannot be canceled(they would be paid anyway if you tried).

With my company, I'm guaranteed a minimum number of hours. There's nothing in my contract that says I can't get canceled but if I am called off due to low census, I still get paid. On my first assignment, I got called off a lot; the charge nurses figured that since I was the 'most expensive' person working (which I'm not, btw), they would be saving the hospital money.

As the hospital has to pay the company regardless, doing so doesn't save them any money. They usually find somewhere for us to work if regular staff doesn't want the day off (but it's pretty rare someone doesn't jump at that chance).