Historically, mandatory overtime has been used to provide adequate staffing in times of crisis; however, as a result of today's severe nursing shortage, hospitals and other healthcare institutions are more commonly using mandatory overtime as a daily management tool to meet staffing requirements. This practice has created turmoil between management and staff in providing quality healthcare. Nursing literature describing staff nurses' views of overtime is limited. This article offers a description of the environment at the Hospital for Sick Children, a private nonprofit rehabilitation and transitional care pediatric hospital in Washington, DC, and the challenges the hospital faces in staffing the patient care units. This article also reports the results of the hospital's efforts to poll the nursing staff on their opinions regarding both voluntary and mandatory overtime and identifies conditions that influence the nursing staff's decisions and perceptions about overtime. Survey results will be used to modify existing staffing strategies and implement new staffing policies.
Nursing work force analysis gives crucial data for administrators, allowing them to anticipate employment opportunities and areas of limited growth. Using an economic model of supply and demand, this study examined the employment and educational needs for nurses. In many areas of data collection, the District of Columbia data paralleled national trends, indicating the nationwide relevance of the conclusions. Projected mismatches between the type of nurses (by educational preparation) entering the work force and the skills required for the job vacancies could lead to increased demand for nurses with certain credentials as well as shortages of nurses in certain types of facilities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.