15 Jul SCHEDULING MODELS FOR AN INPATIENT NURSING UNIT INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION:
Scheduling Models for an Inpatient Nursing Unit Institutional Affiliation:
It is very crucial to adopt the most appropriate scheduling model for an impatient nursing unit, since it influences the level of access to service care providers and ensures provision of care in a cost effective way. The two types of scheduling models that a nursing unit can adapt include cyclic and flexible, while the patterns include 8, 10 or 12 hours. As far as scheduling patterns are concerned, the advantages of cyclic scheduling include the fact that schedules can be specified in advance, schedules are fair to all the workers and they make it easy to manage the workforce (M’Hallah & Alkhabbaz, 2013). However, they are very inflexible, make it difficult to manage 24/7 operations, can be difficult in situation where varying shift lengths are used, and it becomes difficult to combine full and part time workers. Flexible scheduling models makes it easy to combine full and part time workers, flexible and can be changed over time and can be used for varying shift length. However, it is difficult to specify schedule in advance.
The advantage of adopting a 12-hour scheduling pattern includes the fact that it leads to increased productivity of the care providers as well as a reduction of errors. It also lead to continuity of care and accountability of the care providers, reduction of adaptation time, higher rate of completion of projects, reduced care provider turnover and absenteeism.
Evidence also indicates that 12-hour shift pattern leads to improved workers’ morale. From the workers’ perspective, there are more days off implying quality breaks. There is also an improvement in the work-life balance (O’Brien, 2015). However, the disadvantages of the 12 hours shift is difficulty in maintaining vigilance among health care providers, extensive exposure to work related stress and fatigue, reduction in interaction time among health care providers. There is also a chance of health care providers getting out of touch and some taking a second job for the extra hours. Moreover, it may become difficult for workers to cover for absenteeism.
For 10 hours shifts, the advantages include increased hours of sleep hence less fatigue, improved quality of life, improved job performance, and reduced overtime. The disadvantages include increased costs in hiring extra workers. The advantages of 8 hours shift include reduced work- related stress and burnout hence improved performance. Nonetheless, due to increased number of schedule change continuity of care is jeopardized hence the safety of the patients is also reduced (Stimpfel & Aiken, 2013). 8 hours have increased chances of overtime and less chances of having work breaks.
The most appropriate scheduling model for the case presented is flexible in order to take care of the changes in patient acuity and volume. 10-hour scheduling pattern is also appropriate to ensure that nurses can get enough time to relax, which in turn reduces work-related stress and fatigue and, hence, increases performance and staff morale. consideration to any change in scheduling, a number of challenges or barriers need considerations. These include the need for 24/7 coverage, the variations of workload brought about by the shift, unit and the skill level of nurses, rotation between shifts, covering weekends, fluctuations in the number of patients and the shortage of personnel in the unit (Clark & Walker, 2011).
One of the performance measures in determining whether the scheduling changes have been effective includes observing the quality of services. The expectation is that a 10-hour shift will reduce fatigue and work related stress, hence increased workers’ morale, which should improve the quality of services. Monitoring patients could help identify whether there are any changes in the way they respond to care. For example, the number of complaints raised by patient may indicate the level of satisfaction.
Besides changing the scheduling model, the hospital may also need to motivate its workers by providing monetary and other rewards. It could also replace the staff scheduled to be on maternity by hiring another staff to prevent overworking the current staff.
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