Individuals, Not Institutions, Must Determine When to Work Overtime
ANA opposes the use of mandatory overtime as a staffing issue. Only individuals are capable of determining their capacity to work beyond their predetermined, regular work schedules. Mandatory overtime pushes nurses beyond their capacity to work safely and to provide appropriate, quality care to patients.
In the current nurse staffing shortage, many institutions turn to mandatory overtime as a solution. However, mandatory overtime is neither a safe nor a sustainable solution as it can lead to many problems, including:
- Job dissatisfaction
- Health care errors
- Work-related injuries and illnesses
ANA believes that the elimination of mandatory overtime for the nation’s nurses is a critical success factor in efforts to improve the quality of health care and improved working conditions for nurses.
What is Overtime?
Since nursing typically doesn’t follow a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday schedule, how do you determine when overtime occurs? ANA defines overtime as:
“The hours worked in excess of an agreed upon, predetermined, regularly-scheduled full-time or part-time work schedule, as determined by contract, established work scheduling practices, policies, or procedures.”
How to Decide When to Work Overtime
ANA encourages individual nurses to make informed decisions about when to work overtime and avoid fatigue. To help nurses make balanced decisions about the number of hours, ANA has published four provisions within the Code for Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements.
- “The nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family, group, or community.”
- “The nurse promotes, advocates for, and strives to protect the health, safety, and rights of the patient.”
- “The nurse is responsible and accountable for individual nursing practice and determines the appropriate delegation of tasks consistent with the nurse’s obligation to provide optimum patient care.”
- “The nurse participates in establishing, maintaining, and improving health care environments and conditions of employment conducive to the provision of quality health care and consistent with the values of the profession through individual and collective action.”