Nurses & the Effects of Floating

Floating is the practice of reassigning nurses from their assigned areas and placing them elsewhere. They could be needed because the other unit is short-staffed or because hospital policy may require that nurses be familiar with all units. Though floating nurses does have some advantages, it also has several disadvantages that could affect both patients' health and nurses' health as well.

Patient Care

• Hospitals generally assign nurses to units they have proper training in. This ensures good patient care. When a hospital floats nurses, the nurses may be sent to a unit where they have little to no training or orientation, making them unfamiliar with best practices and procedures. This can affect patient care in a negative way if a nurse makes a mistake. If the mistake is critical or even fatal, then the nurse and hospital could also be negatively affected.

Stress

• In-depth studies about what causes stress in a nursing environment came up with several causes of stress, one of which was floating. The stress was increased when floating was mandatory or even scheduled compared to occasional emergency floating when necessary. Since stress can lead to other health conditions, floating has been criticized by many nursing advocates.

Drug Abuse

• Studies show that up to 10 percent of nurses may have substance abuse problems. This includes alcohol, illegal drugs and prescription drugs, some of which may be procured from their place of work. Up to 6 percent of these nurses may have a problem to the degree that it could impair their ability to work. There appears to be a direct correlation to stress and drug abuse, with floating being a major factor in the stress levels of nurses. Therefore, floating can be a contributing factor to drug abuse by nurses.

Nursing Licenses

• When a nurse is unfamiliar with a unit due to floating, mistakes can happen. If these mistakes directly impact the immediate or long-term health of a patient, then administrative action may ensue. This could lead to nurses losing their license to practice either temporarily or even permanently. The hospital could also be fined or sanctioned for the mistakes. In order to combat this, hospitals who float nurses often try to only send them to units that are similar to their own to cut down on potential mistakes, lawsuits and loss of licenses.