Situation

The nursing department of a metropolitan hospital faced a large budget overage due to nurse overtime hours as well as complaints from the nursing staff about stress caused by missed meals and  breaks and extra time required to complete end-of-shift reporting.

Team Engagement Strategy

A cross-shift team of nurses with varying years of service was brought together to solve the problem using Rapid Action, an “all in one” team engagement toolkit for accelerating results.

Rapid Action Project Charter

How can we make it easier for nursing staff members to complete their shifts on-time and take required meal breaks to reduce the level of overtime hours and employee stress?

Sample of Solutions Implemented

1. Designed and implemented a program to communicate best practices for timely shift close-out and meal breaks along with a recognition program for “On-Time Performance.”
2. Standardized shift change assignments to minimize the number of hand-off s when reporting at end-of-shift.
3. Installed visual scheduling board for meal breaks before shift start.
4. Standardized the shift report format across all units to improve ease of completion and reduce the need for follow-up discussion.