Why Six-Hour Doesn T Work?

A considerable amount of literature has been published on the impact of working hours (8 vs. 12 hour shifts) on fatigue among the nurses. These studies revealed that twelve-hour shifts increase the risk of fatigue, reduce the level of alertness and performance, and therefore reduce the safety aspect compared to eight-hour shifts (Mitchell and Williamson, 1997; Dorrian et al., 2006; Dembe et al., 2009; Tasto et al., 1978). Mills et al. (1982) found that the risk of fatigues and performance errors are associated with the 12-hour shifts. Beside this, Jostone et al. (2002) revealed that nurses who are working for long hours

Patients in a hospital and/or healthcare facilities have to be cared for all day and all night, everyday of the week by nurses. The usual way to fulfill this need is to divide up the day into three 8-hour shifts. Different shifts have been put into place to help improve nurse satisfaction, decrease the nursing shortage and save the hospital money. The 24-hour day is made up of two 12-hour shifts; 12 hours in the day and 12 hours at night. There has been quite an ongoing debate over the years regarding this issue of nurses working over 8 hours in a single day. Many people, such as hospital nursing administrators, have reason to believe that working long hour shifts causes more errors in

Whether or not mandatory overtime is required varies from facility to facility. Like many other issues, there are both pros and cons to this topic. Witkoski,S, Sloane, D, and Aiken L (2012) did a study and concluded that nurses who worked 10 or more hours a shift were more likely to experience burnout and were dissatisfied with their jobs with an intent on quitting. Burnout can affect the quality of care a nurse provides to patients. Burnout can be the cause of a nurse not noticing subtle changes of patients which could potentially lead to patient neglect. Although there are cons to working long shifts there are some pros. When nurses work 12hour shifts, they often meet or exceed their weekly hours over the course of a 3day work week. Since they would only be working a three-day work week, it provides nurses with a better work-life balance and flexibility (Witkoski,S, Sloane, D, and Aiken L 2012), giving nurses more time outside of their job to do whatever they would like. Getting this kind of flexibility is great for nurses like myself who are either back in school or have families to take care of, or just need a little more time to recover and

The positive effect of 12 hour shifts on nurses include a shorter workweek, enhanced work-life balance, flexibility, and better continuity of care for patients. Nurses typically work 10 days a pay period during eight hour shifts. However, working 12 hour shifts allows nurses to work six days a pay period. Resulting in a reduction of four days work. Next, it gives nurses the sense of balance between work and their life. A research conducted in Australia after the introduction of 12 hour shifts states, “92 percent of nurses noticed 12 hour shifts gave them greater flexibility and 83 percent noticed it gave them more time to spend with their loved ones” (Aveyard et al., 2016/ 2017). Working less days means freedom away from job related activity,

In the nursing profession, especially when working in a hospital, it is not uncommon to have 12-hour nursing shifts,

The first topic focused on in an article by Stimpfel et al. (2012) looked at the effect of longer shifts on nurses. Compared to the past, nurses are working twelve-hour shifts, instead of eight-hour shifts. The reason for these changes in shift lengths is for it to allow for nurses to have more flexibility in their schedules and to give them more time at home. This study revealed that the hours actually worked by nurses are unpredictable. Due to the fluctuations of patient needs and unanticipated staffing on the unit, leads to nurses having to work over their scheduled time (Stimpfel et al. 2012). This study also pointed out that there are no national policies for nurses that dictate the maximum number of hours a nurse can work. Nurses often end up working several hours over their shift because they feel forced into working those hours and thereby leading to burnout.

12-Hour shifts have constantly been an argument in the field of nursing. This topic interests me because there is constant jitter around this topic, to whether if it’s safe, or not. This can be taken into view from the patients view and also the nurses. Nurses should not be allowed to work 12-hour shifts because, the physical and emotional impact on their bodies is too debilitating, and the length of the shifts could be a potentially hazard to the patients.

While officer fatigue is less frequently an issue under the 5-8 shift plan, it is not with out drawbacks. Under this shift plan, many officers are permanently assigned the same days off each week, rarely allowing them to have weekends off when most other individuals are. When a weekend is offered, there is the potential chance that the officer will be scheduled for court due to the fixed nature of this shift plan. Additionally, calls-for-service that come towards the end of a shift have long response times, and are in turn passed on to the incoming shift, potentially adding stress to the officers coming on shift, leading to decreased morale levels amongst some officers. Although, the 5-8 plan is more cost efficient with equipment and resource

In the medical field, residents’ work hours were reduced down to 80 hours per week in 2003, and the ACGME is still proposing further restrictions. Outside of the medical field, truck drivers are limited to solely eleven hours of driving, given a ten-hour break; along with railroad workers, who must also take a ten-hour break before starting a shift. Another time demanding profession is aviation, in which their administration allows pilots to fly only sixteen consecutive hours, and if a flight delay were to extend that pilot’s shift, then they must switch (Townsend & Anderson, 2013). It is said that the IOM only limits nurses to work twelve hours in a twenty-four hour period, although it is not implemented very well and there is research to prove it.

As the nursing profession advanced, numerous modifications transpired, driving the progression of this health sector in a new direction (Thomas & Richardson, 2016, p. 1072). In the past, regulations of working conditions allowed nurses to work on a rotation of eight-hour shift, but in the 70s and 80s the healthcare system progressed to working 10-12 hour shifts. This new working condition was implemented to accommodate the rise of nursing-shortages (As cited in, Bae, 2012, p. 205; Witkoski Stimpfel, Sloane & Aiken, 2012, p. 2501). In 2009, it was approximated that roughly 60% of nurses are now abiding to 12-hour shifts, according to the American Nursing Association (ANA) (As cited in, Bae, 2012, p. 205). Today, not only is this practice still used, but a new development has occurred, overtime. Overtime work began to be used by the healthcare system as a supplement, alleviate the on-going nursing shortages and remediate new compilations being brought by understaffing issues, therefore becoming a custom in nursing practice (Debrit, Ngan, Hay, Alamgir, 2010, p. 28; As cited in, Bae, 2012, p. 205; Berney, Needleman, Kover, 2005, p. 165). A national survey completed by a sample of Registered Nurses (RN), concluded that 43% of nurses work more than 40 hours a week, and that 9% work more than 60 hours a week (As cited in, Bae, 2012, p. 61; Bae & Brewer, 2010, p. 99). In 2010, a survey completed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also calculated that

(Senteniel) Additional studies show risk of errors and close calls were related to longer shift length and were associated with decreased attentiveness. Nurses also suffer higher rates of occupational injury when working shifts more than 12 hours. (Joint Commision, 20111) The ANA acknowledges the relationship between working long hours and increased risk for sleep disturbances, injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, gastrointestinal problems, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adverse reproductive outcomes. (NANN, 2012) In addition to clinical outcomes, there is an association between nurses who worked 13 or more hours in the hospital and lack of communication with patients regarding pain control. Burnout is common among nurses working long shifts and they are more than likely to leave their job within the first year. Shifts scheduled for 12 hours often exceed that timeframe, as many as 40% of the work shifts logged for their study exceeded 12 hours. (Martin, 2012) There are many reasons for fatigue, but shift length is the one that is most obvious and easy to fix. It is no wonder for nurse fatigue when 12 hour shifts are the norm. Twelve hour shifts are standard practice even though the Institute of Medicine recommends limiting them. At a recent nursing management congress Cole Edmonson stated that 12 hour shifts may cause more problems than they solve. While research is aiding us comprehend the dangers nurse fatigue brings to patients and nurses themselves, he called 12 hour shifts “a dead idea whose time has passed”. Eliminating 12 hour shifts is obvious if the fact is acknowledged that nurse fatigue is a serious problem. (Hendren,

Limited attention has been paid to the hours worked by nurses, or the effects of these hours on patient safety (Rogers, 2008). Even though most nurses favor 12- hour shifts and overtime, it is associated with difficulties staying awake during times of duty, reduced sleep times, and triple the risk of making an error (Rogers, 2008). The most significant risk of making an error occurred when nurses were scheduled to work 12.5 hours or more.

When at work there are always those certain coworkers that you personally can’t stand; working less hours than you do now will still allow you to still make the money you need to pay bills and save in general. You will no longer have to deal with those annoying coworkers.

They state that shorter workdays require a level of intense focus that can be damaging to ones health, however if ten minute breaks were implemented for every hour of work, people would have enough time to recharge before resuming their task. Others are worried that with shortened hours, people will lose income, and the health benefits that come with a full time job. If the workday is shortened, then insurance and wages will naturally adapt to fit the new hours.

Well that would require us to add 1 hour and 45 minutes to each day. This would have us going to 5:00 p.m. each day. Some students get to school at 6:20 for athletics. If they had to stay until five, they will have been at school for 10 hours and 40 minutes which will easily over stress and work these students. Even those who don’t have athletics have to be at the school by 8:00 a.m. and would have to stay till 5:00 p.m. The classic american work hours are 9-5. That composes a 8 hour shift which is what most people work. This means that students will be here for 1 hour more than the number of hours most adults work.