2 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7
B
y adjusting our work-
week from Monday-
Friday to Tuesday-
Monday, we've all but elimi-
nated paying staff overtime. If
your facility is anything like
our 2 pediatric surgery cen-
ters, the caseloads ramp up
as the week progresses. We
often don't perform proce-
dures on Mondays, yet we'd
schedule nurses to work a full shift despite there being little to do.
Meanwhile, staff often work longer than 8 hours on Thursdays and
Fridays, when our ORs are packed. By the time the end of the week
rolled around, they'd accrued upwards of 13 hours of overtime.
Shifting the end of the pay period from Fridays to Mondays lets us
know how close each nurse is to the 40-hour mark. When staff realize
they're about to be working overtime, we'll let salaried staff members
take their places. For example, nurses who work 8 hours on Tuesday
(the new beginning of the pay period), 8 hours on Wednesday and 11
hours on Thursday and Friday come in on Monday knowing they can
pull cases for 2 hours to total a 40-hour workweek and then go home.
Our nurses appreciate having Monday as a short day so they can run
errands or enjoy the time off.
Carol Trokanski, BSN, CASC
Pediatric Surgery Centers
Odessa and Tampa, Fla.
ctrokanski@uspi.com
SALARY SAVER
One Simple Trick to Reduce Staff Overtime
• PAY CHECK You'll reduce paying staff overtime when you end your
pay period on the slowest day of the week.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
Ideas Work
That
