Date
of Last Review 3/13/07
SME: Director of Nursing
Policy: UTHCPC is committed to providing excellence in patient care and service utilizing the appropriate personnel while maintaining productivity goals.
Purpose: To define process for flexing hospital resources when hospital census fluctuates
Procedure:
The departmental manager confirms that there is more staff than needed to provide
service according to projected patient census needs. An attempt is made to check
all areas and potential patient service demands considering anticipated discharges,
admissions and workflow. If it has been determined that overstaffing exists
and there are no further existing needs for staff due to anticipated patient
demands, the following procedures will be followed in the order listed:
The order in which the department or unit flexes down for low census is as follows:
| 1. | Cancellation of employees going into overtime within the work-week. |
| 2. | Cancellation of employees on casual, part-time (less than .5 FTE ), or temporary status. |
| 3. | Reassignment of regular staff to another area or department within their competency on their regular worked shift. |
| 4. | Reassignment of employees to another day of week or shift. |
| 5. | Solicitation of staff to volunteer for time off, either as paid benefit time (holiday, vacation) or unpaid leave, whichever the employee chooses. |
| 6. | Cancellation of an employee’s shift (based upon following criteria). Employee will be offered the use of paid benefit time (holiday, vacation). If paid benefit time is not available or in the event the employee does not choose paid leave, the employee will be on a leave without pay status for that shift. |
The manager or supervisor will make efforts to cancel the employee’s shift two hours prior to the start of the shift/scheduled workday when possible. Staff members who are cancelled for the shift/scheduled workday are not obligated to be available during that shift in the event of a change in census. Employees who are not notified of a shift cancellation before arriving to work will be allowed to work a minimum of two hours.
Criteria for order of reassignments
The criteria utilized for selecting employees to be reassigned to another area
other than their normal work area will be followed in the following order:
| 1. | Competent employee who volunteers | |
| 2. | If there are not enough competent volunteers, reassignment of employees will be made among all competent employees based on the following criteria: | |
| a. | Seniority beginning with employees with least HCPC service | |
| b. | Once an employee has been involuntarily reassigned or sent home, they are rotated off the list until all competent employees have been called or sent home. The manager may make exceptions to this rule in the event the proper skill mix may be affected. | |
Criteria for order of shift cancellations of clinical staff*
| In the event of overstaffing employees are to be sent home based upon: | |
| 1. | Seniority beginning with employees with least HCPC service. |
| 2. | Once an employee has been involuntarily reassigned or sent home, they are rotated off the list until all competent employees have been called or sent home. The manager may make exceptions to this rule in the event the proper skill mix may be affected. |
*Clinical staff consists of: All nursing classifications within the nursing department; Hospital Aides and Sr. Hospital Aides; all licensed and non-licensed competent staff members who have clinical experience.
Related to regulatory standards
If you have questions regarding the contents of this site please contact the
Policies and Procedures Committee.
If you experience any technical problems please contact the MIS Department..
