What are your call requirements??

JJ1994 · Nov 2, 2016

We don't have any call requirements. When our census goes up, they text or call whoever is off and ask us to work. I think it would be nice to have call because I get text almost every time I'm off and it kinda gets annoying. I would much rather know I'm on call so I don't get disappointed when I don't get me day off

CaliRNlove · Nov 3, 2016

My last hospital we had call hours until they got rid of them. Essentially how it worked was you had to signup for a shift per scheduling period. You got paid for being on call but it was almost nothing. It was pretty much mandatory overtime, if you got called in. It really didn't solve staffing issues because there would only be 1 person on call and if the unit needed 5 Nurses it didn't really do much. I remember one night in particular we were down about 10 Nurses, staff just sucked it up and dealt. Really they just needed to hire more people. They would also go down the list of people not on for that shift and call people asking them to come in.

My current hospital has no call hours. Instead of calling people on the phone list just about everyone is in a Facebook group and they put out a mass message to the group saying they are short for the night and to call the unit if they want to come in. Seems to work well.

I find people are more willing to work for the unit when They could volunteer to come in rather than being mandatoried.

rnkaytee · Nov 3, 2016

We only do transport call - 24 hours/month. We are only called if there is a transport to an outlying hospital. If it is for short staffing, people just get lots of calls and texts until the hole is filled.

tinybbynurse · Nov 5, 2016

when you're eligible for transport on my floor, you sign up for blocks of time to be on call. I think it's like 4 or 8 hour blocks, something like that ...not 24 hours. I'm not sure how often or if it's mandatory...it may be ... I'm not totally sure yet, I think you at least have to be oriented to transport role though. You get paid on call pay even if you're not called in, and if you are called in for transport, you get on call pay on top of your normal pay. they just call people and ask them to work when they're short, they don't have a mandatory "Come in" policy based off of a low census that I'm aware of.

infantsonly · Dec 11, 2016

No on call time on my unit. When we are short staffed we get nurses from other units to take stable infants, and we call/text those who aren't working and get volunteers to come in. When it comes down to it if we don't get more staff we work with what we have. If that means 4 patients a nurse it is what it is. We so our best and work together, always trying to keep really critical kids on their own assignment, or with one non critical patient.

BrandNewBabyNurse · Dec 11, 2016

We're required to choose one day per scheduling period. Get paid $24 if you never get called in, but you get overtime pay if you do get called. We also have a text message hotline that you can be on the list for when we have higher staffing needs.

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · Dec 12, 2016

We do not do call shifts in my unit. IMHO, call shifts are an excuse by management to not hire or adequately staff a unit. Part of it here is that we are unionized, and have set patient ratios. Hell would break loose if management tried to mandate extra shifts above what our contract states.

NICUmiiki, DNP, NP · Dec 29, 2016

No call here. Our unit relies on incentives for regular staff, emergency PRN, and agency staff when census skyrockets. Amazing how quickly they fill positions when they start offering an extra $20/hr on top of base pay, differentials, and overtime. Some mother/baby nurses are crossed trained and can take Level 2 babies (they get incentives too).

Pajefferson16 · Jan 7, 2017

Our unit requires us to sign up for at least 32 hours a pay period (6 weeks) of call. We get paid $2 an hour for every hour we are on call and if we get called in (which rarely happens, only if someone is going out on transport) we get paid time and a half for when we are at work. When census gets high (which has been happening a lot more as of late) we pull nurses from peds and OB to take care of the babies who do not need a lot of care. If they are swamped and not able to come over they send out a mass text asking for people to come in.