Floating nurses and patient safety 1

Floating nurses and patient safety

Westminster College

Jill Paxman
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Background

Primary Children’s Hospital is a wonderful place to learn and grow as a nurse. Being a

part of float pool has afforded me the opportunity to see and experience many different units

and even become somewhat comfortable on some of these units. This is not the case for the

majority of nurses when they get pulled from their home unit to float to another unit. Whether

it is short staffing, sick calls, or float pool doesn’t have enough staff to fill the needs of the

hospital, floating is a dreaded assignment for most nurses. While float pool is trained on all

units in the hospital over the course of one year, floor and ICU nurses are not given this

opportunity, causing much anxiety and dissatisfaction among staff, not to mention trying to

maintain safe patient care.

Every unit in the hospital does their charting a little bit differently, stocks their supplies

in different places and has unit specific protocols they use. There are cheat sheets that are

stashed around the units if you can find them, but it is still an adjustment when you aren’t

floating there very often and can take away time from patient care.

Building Relationships

By the time I started thinking about what I wanted to tackle for my final project I had

already established a relationship with my preceptors Arista and Rebecca. Arista and I were

talking one day and overheard a nurse that had to float to another unit. She was saying how

much she was dreading it because it is such a different atmosphere, she didn’t know where

anything was and felt completely out of her comfort zone. This was perfect for me, I found my

project idea.
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I started talking with some of the nurses on each unit that we visited to get their

opinions on floating and possible solutions to having to float. Being a part of float pool, I feel

like it is harder to get to know the staff as well as if I was assigned on a single unit. I talked with

Sally, one of the educators at Primary Children’s about formulating a plan that we could come

up with to help ease the stress of nurses having to float.

Research

In case you weren’t familiar with the term, “floating” to nurses is the dreaded “F” word.

It makes for an uncomfortable situation for the nurse being pulled from their home unit to a

whole other world. Some might argue that nursing is nursing but it’s not, and causes a great

dissatisfaction among staff. Nursing interventions might be within the nurse’s scope of

practice, but it is not within their acquired skill set. A pediatric nurse floating to a surgical unit

or a NICU nurse floating to the oncology unit is the cause of much anxiety and I have known

nurses to quit where they are working based strictly on the fact that they have to float.

Floating nurses may not be able to answer patient questions and concerns effectively, which

could lead to the patient and family members questioning their nurse’s credibility. Typically,

when a nurse floats they are given an assignment that would be considered easy for the floor

they are going to and hopefully assigned a “buddy” to help them if they have any questions.

What can we do going forward to help make this transition easier on us as nurses?

Plan

In talking with staff and educators within the hospital, I felt like it was a great idea to

start implementing a plan to make this less stressful. After a nurse has gone through their unit

orientation and has some time to feel comfortable, I thought it would be a great idea to have
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the nurses spend some time on other units and become familiar with them, how each unit’s

protocols work, where items are located, how they do their charting, and communication with

the medical team. My thought would be to have them assigned to a nurse from that unit to

help them during this trial shift if they were to need it before they end up getting floated there.

I feel by following these suggestions it will help ease the mind of the floating nurse and help to

make them more comfortable when floating to different units.

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Bibliography

Bitanga, M.E. (n.d.). What Are The Effects Of Floating to Nurses And Patient Care. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from https://rn-

journal.com/journal-of-nursing/effects-of-floating-to-nurses-and-patient-care.

Good, E., & Bishop, P. (2011, May). Willing to Walk: A Creative Strategy to Minimize Stress Related to Floating. Retrieved

October 23, 2019, from

https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=1161969&Journal_ID=54024&Issue_ID=1161688.

Jovis, L. (2017, November 20). The Perils of Floating: when nurses are expected to work outside their area of expertise.

Retrieved October 23, 2019, from https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid-5&sid=dc240256-5638-4b65-

b8ff-a8797c854993@pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=106915460&db=c8h.

Kany, K. (n.d.). Workplace Rights: The Wild Blue Yonder. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3522166?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.

O’Connor, K., & Dugan, J. (2017, February). Addressing floating and patient safety. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from

https://www.nursing center.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=3968283&Journal_ID=54016&Issue_ID=3968110.