We are a small CAH hospital at Lake Tahoe. We have the same problem with a small staff taking a lot of call, especially in peak tourist season of winter and summer. Since we get a lot of Orthopedic injuries from the ski resorts and same in the summer from all the outdoor activities, our call team was exhausted from working all evening, and sometimes into the night after working that day. As you know, then the next day when this staff has to return in the morning for another full day of work, it was not safe.
As a result, we started an “on-call” shift seasonally. The on-call shift is comprised of two staff on call from 17:00 to 0700 the next morning. They cover for 14 hours and get paid 8 hours straight time whether or not they are called in and no matter how many hours they actually work. We assign the two staff members to this on-call shift for a week at a time. They cover 5 shifts, either Monday through Friday or Sunday through Thursday. Only full time staff qualify to work this “on-call” shift.
This was implemented not necessarily to save money (because it usually does not save money), but because we needed to ensure safe patient care. To do this “on-call” shift, it requires the part time staff to have to flex up their hours at times to have enough coverage during the day for scheduled cases. This has been quite successful for the past four years. There are some issues that arise at times over this call shift, however, we still seem to be able to justify it and work through the issues.
I would be happy to answer any questions and address the issues that we encounter at times because of this call shift.

Linda Harman, MS, RN, CNOR
Director, Surgical Services
Tahoe Forest Health System

I worked in a large facility on the East coast where they were used particularly in the
Spine and Ortho joint rooms. This was after there was a bout of infections.
The units were used according to the manufacturer recommendations as to duration of exposure. Does this help?

Chris Rosenthal

• This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by OR Manager.

We have Force Triads and Force FX…works well

Pedrina Blouin

We have Conmed 5000 units in all of our OR suites due to cost/size and have purchased a smaller amount of Force Triad units for cases that require Ligasure along with other modalities.

Elizabeth Howerton

We have been using Covidien for as long as I can remember, and that’s a long time.

Jim Madden, RN

Our processing decontam area has 3 sinks, approximately 20 inches deep, 20 x 28′ in size.

Karen Caballero Mathis

Thanks Carol! We really appreciate your input.

Cara