RE: 24hour shifts

["Paul M. Wright, Jr." <pmwright@home.com>]

Ah.... one of my favorite subjects!  In the past, I've been pretty
long-winded about the subject and those comments are available in the
archives, but over the years I've distilled those thoughts into a single
question:

"How much of a degradation in safety, performance and productivity are you
willing to accept for the sake of staff convenience and/or a possible
budgetary advantage?".

In the real world, trade-offs have to be made between costs and benefits and
I would not argue that a 24-hour staffing model is necessarily the wrong
choice in every case.  However, in my experience, the model is inherently
inimical to the best patient care and quite often causes broader performance
and safety problems as well so I see it as an option of last resort.


paul


Paul M. Wright, Jr.
Mesa, AZ

















> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: flightmed-admin@flightweb.com
> >[mailto:flightmed-admin@flightweb.com]On Behalf Of pedsrusscott@cs.com
> >Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 4:14 AM
> >To: flightmed@flightweb.com
> >Subject: 24hour shifts
> >
> >
> >Greetings - our flight crew (flight nurses) are investigating
> >the option of 24-hour shifts - the biggest concern involves the
> >seemingly inevitable "no flights all day, then fly all night
> >safety issues" - any programs that currently do 24's or have in
> >the past & now don't, comments welcome
> >thanx!
> >Scott DeBoer RN,MSN,CFRN
> >UCAN Flight Team
> >University of Chicago Hospitals
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Flightmed mailing list


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