Overtime in nursing
The issue of nursing overtime and recruitment caught headlines earlier this week, raising questions about what heath authorities – and VCH in particular – have done to reduce overtime hours, recruit into specialty nursing positions, and generally take care of this group of employees who are linked with long hours and demanding work.
“Looking after our patients and our employees is important and it starts by making sure we have enough of the right people in place, particularly nurses,” said Anne Harvey, VP, Employee Engagement. “Over the last five years, VCH has made recruitment and training of specialty nurses a strategic priority. We’ve hired 614 experienced specialty nurses and spent $16.9 million training an additional 660.”
VCH has also been acting on opportunities to be more innovative with scheduling. For example, we implemented experienced resource nurse pools beginning in 2011 at our three largest sites (VGH, LGH and RH) to provide robust relief coverage and reduce reliance on overtime (OT). The RN resource pools cover shifts at short notice to provide relief and reduce OT across multiple units in each site.
The good news is VCH’s total nursing OT hours as a percentage of productive hours has been decreasing – slowly but steadily – since 2012. Three years ago, it was 4.15 per cent and today it is 3.41 per cent. This is a number the health authority pays close attention to as one way to monitor nursing burnout and fatigue, and we are quick to act when the rate starts to creep upward.
Still, there’s more to be done and VCH’s Employee Engagement team knows it. With patient care demands growing by the day, it can often feel like there are never enough hands on deck. With this in mind, VCH is creating 100 additional regular RN positions right across the health authority. This work is in progress right now.
“We know we’ll never eliminate the need for overtime,” said Anne, “largely because we have to be responsive to sometimes unpredictable patient needs and the fact that staff get sick and must be backfilled – that’s just the nature of our work in health care. But there are things that can be done to keep OT in check: We are doing those things and over time, we are having success.
“In the meantime, we are grateful to our nurses and to all of our frontline care providers, who show up every day and bring commitment and compassion to the essential work of caring for others in their times of greatest need.”