San Antonio Military Medical Center Case Study

One organizational issue often discussed at the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC) involves the policy and practice of floating nursing staff. Currently there is not a specified float pool of nursing staff, as one would often encounter at civilian hospitals. Thus, in order to maintain a pre-defined patient to nurse ratio, nursing staff will float to other units to fill vacancies created when staff call in sick, are on vacation, or have an unfilled position. Although the nurses should receive an orientation on the unit floated to, perform only the skills that have been completed within their competency folders, and receive proper handoff from the off-going nurse, several issues have been identified with how nurses are floated within …show more content…
It has been found that “nursing float pools may reduce total nursing labor costs by 2% to 5%” (Lebanik & Britt, 2015, p.50). Abbott Northwestern Hospital (ANW) also discovered this cost savings, as “agency nurses cost [them] $71.00 per hour per nurse,” as opposed to “the average ANW nurse salary of $38.00 per hour” (Larson et al., 2012, p.28). Finally, in SAMMC’s quest to become a Higher Reliability Organization, it is important to determine the best nursing practices. Since the nursing float pool will become accustomed to working on multiple units, they will be able to “learn and share best practices from one unit to another” as they are “active in improving care on the units and have the unique perspective of viewing the organization as a whole” (Rainess et al., 2015, p 18). In conclusion, creating an internal pool of float nurses who have extensive experience and have chosen to perform that function will be beneficial to SAMMC. This option will increase patient safety and staff satisfaction and retention, be more cost effective than hiring an outside agency, and become a vital resource for best nursing practices within the