It looks good on paper...
It looks good on paper and that is about it. The plan does not take into account emergency surgeries, unplanned admissions. In the end it does not save money. By sending someone home, the nursing staff that remains ends up having to stay late to chart. I don't see how they could be saving any money at all.

Staffing issues.
I agree with Kemmie on this one. My hospital will call a nurse off almost every day, then when one admission comes, they call that nurse in. Our on-call pay is one dollar an hour! Messes your whole day up, when you could be working somewhere else and making money instead of sitting home that day, waiting for the phone to ring. If we send a couple of patients home, they send a nurse and a nursing assistant home at three in the afternoon. We all work 12 hr. shifts, so that makes you lose out on four hours pay. I can't keep losing pay like this; I will be moving on to a hospital that doesn't try to cut staff like this constantly. It never fails, as soon as they send an RN home, here come the admissions and you get really busy; you end up staying over and they pay you over-time, when they could have made everybody happy and let the nurse stay instead of being sent home. This is an everyday thing. Also, they use travel and contract nurses-- they cannot cut their hours due to their contract! so the regular, faithful, full-time nurses are the ones who get screwed. Sorry if this sounds blunt, but I got called off again today and am sitting home losing 12 hrs. of pay that I desperately need.

Nash Group
Thanks for your replies--I agree with everything you both said. I think I'm actually getting superstitious (whew, had to check that spelling twice!) because it seems like sending a nurse home is the perfect way to bring in admissions. Now they're telling us to stay home in 4-hour blocks, and wait by the phone in case they decide they need us. The sad part is, people need the pay, so they do it. What a perfect way to wreck a day. You can't even go grocery shopping. (Whoopie! ) Today they told the OR staff to just LEAVE at 3 pm--never mind the equipment, they can clean it in the am, can you believe that?? Now that's stupid, you can't leave that stuff overnight or it will get ruined, and even if it doesn't, what a mess to face in the morning. I bet that won't save them any time then, except the docs will be screaming to get started anyway. This group must not know anything about patients--just money. It's very cold, all calculations and "grids" and such. Oh boy, time for bed....ttyl--Nurse Betty :wink:

NASH
Dont waste your money on Nash our hospital did it and yes they give you advice and numbers and analyze your data but still there are too many exceptions and situations that pop up that can offset staffing in 5 minutes that it truly is not worth the large investment.

Really?! That's disturbing. Can you possibly give me a little more info so I can take it back to our nursing practice committee? Like I know they will say you can't really compare if you're not the same hospital size (we're in a 125-bed community hospital, pretty rural). Anyway, they always say we don't have any money, so how can they afford this? Did any nurses leave because of it? That's what I'm afraid of. Thanks for posting your reply!