4 ms·

I was reading an informed opinion recently that longer shifts are much better for nursing, in that there's a lot of lost efficiency and lost knowledge during sh

by Osmium 11y ago

I was reading an informed opinion recently that longer shifts are much better for nursing, in that there's a lot of lost efficiency and lost knowledge during shift changes. Perhaps limiting the total number of hours worked in a week, rather than the length of any one individual shift, might be better? This person's opinion was that tiredness was not as big an issue as it's made out to be -- though I'm personally skeptical of that, and would be surprised if statistics back it up, it does seem to be a view I hear from some medical professionals.

Retric 11y ago
There is two ways to deal with that problem, either fewer handoffs or better handoffs. I suspect focusing on more efficient handoffs and practicing more may be better than simply having longer shifts. Because 6h vs 12h shifts might cut handoff mistakes in half, but with 6h shifts good record keeping becomes more obviously important, and fewer things need to be communicated at handoff aka 6h worth of info vs 12h worth of info.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Shifts (being groups of workers that start and finish at a particular time en masse) themselves are probably contrary to good practice wrt patient care. If the whole shift changes then it seems there would be a substantial discontinuity in care; you'd want people to have staggered work patterns so in any hour there is always a substantial proportion of staff who were there the previous hour. Unless you have many-to-one carers-to-patients then it wouldn't matter so much.
arnsholt 11y ago
It seems that some medical professionals think they're super-human. A statistic I've seen cited was that the same number of mistakes were made during the first eight hours of a shift as during the one hour following those first eight. Basically, the rules apply to medicine like everywhere else: productivity (or whatever you'd want to call it in this case), drops off sharply after eight hours.

by Osmium 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

There is two ways to deal with that problem, either fewer handoffs or better handoffs. I suspect focusing on more efficient handoffs and practicing more may be better than simply having longer shifts. Because 6h vs 12h shifts might cut handoff mistakes in half, but with 6h shifts good record keeping becomes more obviously important, and fewer things need to be communicated at handoff aka 6h worth of info vs 12h worth of info.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Shifts (being groups of workers that start and finish at a particular time en masse) themselves are probably contrary to good practice wrt patient care. If the whole shift changes then it seems there would be a substantial discontinuity in care; you'd want people to have staggered work patterns so in any hour there is always a substantial proportion of staff who were there the previous hour. Unless you have many-to-one carers-to-patients then it wouldn't matter so much.

arnsholt 11y ago

It seems that some medical professionals think they're super-human. A statistic I've seen cited was that the same number of mistakes were made during the first eight hours of a shift as during the one hour following those first eight. Basically, the rules apply to medicine like everywhere else: productivity (or whatever you'd want to call it in this case), drops off sharply after eight hours.