Cancellation and Floating Guidelines
Sometimes it is necessary to cancel or float staff due to the needs of the Medical Center. The decisions around cancels and floating adhere to our principles of meeting patient care needs, ensuring staff are clinically qualified to assume any patient care responsibility, and minimizing staff disruption regarding expectations about assigned units or patient care responsibilities.
Floating
Routinely Scheduled Shifts
Staff working a routinely scheduled shift on their home unit will be floated as needed based on unit rotation system.
Voluntary Shifts
Staff working an extra shift on a voluntary basis will be floated based on the following order:
- Staff whose home unit is the float pool cost center.
- Unit staff – per unit rotation.
- Unit guests (ie., iShift staff) – the manager or supervisor should review and consider the guest’s reason for selecting the unit (ie., professional growth/development). before making a float decision.
- If all the staff on the unit is of equal competency the staff will float by turn and it may be necessary to use names in a hat for a fair process.
- The floor receiving the float needs to make every effort to insure the assignment will meet this individual’s competency.
Cancellation
When the Census Drops
When the census drops, and after consideration of unit skill mix needs and patient acuity, the following steps will be taken to adjust staffing:
- Floating per the guidelines above.
- Staff should be moved to other days in which there may be staffing needs.
- Cancel staff on overtime or other premium pay programs.
- Per-diem and iShift should be canceled before offering VTO.
- Offer voluntary time off (VTO) per unit routine.
Inactivating iShift Privileges
Nurse manager guidelines for inactivating iShift privileges:
- High percentage of and pattern of unplanned time off around scheduled shifts.
- Employee has canceled 3 or more shifts in a time cycle without adequate explanation.
- Employee has not appeared for a scheduled shift more than 2 times in a time cycle without an explanation.
- Employee has a pattern of tardy behavior reported from units they have worked iShifts.
- Reports of poor performance on units they have worked iShifts.
