THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING REQUIRED BREAKS 2
The Importance of Taking Required Breaks – Ways to Achieve It
Good health is vital for any nurse. Nursing requires working long hours in often very harsh environment dealing with life and death situations. A nurse should be very strong both mentally and physically, so she can provide the much needed care for her patients and successfully be their advocate at all times. “The nurse on break should be free from worry and concern” (WSNA, 2016). Many nurses fail to take their breaks due to inadequate staff coverage, extreme work overload and many other reasons, and that in a long run …show more content…
My hospital’s business week starts on Sunday and end on Saturday. The full time job requirement is to work 3 days each week. Over a period of 5 weeks that amounts to 15 days of work. I made a small Excel document to help me track my breaks: break number per day (BN, meaning how many required breaks taken a day-1 or 2 not including lunch break), break length (BL) and I decided to briefly outline the reasons for not taking breaks, so I can work on whatever I can change and improve in a long run. It was amazing to discover how many unplanned activities and job occurrences came up during the day. The first week of May 8th Thursday and Friday were the same: BN was 1, BL 10. Sunday BN was 1, BL was 15. Continuing in the second week May 15th-21st the data was as follows: for 2 of the days BN was 0, for one day 1, BL ranged 5 to 10 minutes. The recording of the reasons for not taking break started showing some repeating trends. The third week of May 22nd-28th BN was 0 for one day and 1 for 2 days, BL 5-10. Some reasons for failure to take breaks recorded. The fourth week of May 29th-June 4th BN was 0 for 2 days and 1 for 1 day, BL 5-10 minutes. The last 5th week of June 5th-June 11th BN was 0 for all three days, BL 5 minutes for all days. Reasons trends …show more content…
I also analyzed the objective and subjective reasons paying particular attention to the days when I was not able to take any breaks at all. My detailed analysis revealed very interesting trends, some of which did not depend on me. The analysis showed that I was able to take a full 15-minute break only one time during the 15 days of work. Most often I took only 1 break, sometimes no breaks at all and the break length was 5-10 minutes long. The lunch period of half hour is not considered for the purpose of this paper since it is mandatory and a subject to negative administrative actions if not taken. The first histogram named “Break Number (BN)” depicts the ratio between number of work days and the number of breaks taken. I took only 1 break during 7 days out of all 15 work days. The rest of 8 days I did not take any breaks, besides the lunch break. The second histogram named “Break Length (BL)” shows the length of the breaks in minutes for each of the 15 work days for the period. The analysis of the reasons I did not take break showed interesting trends. In the busiest days I either had admitted a new patient or I had one or more patients with severe change of condition up to and including death. On some of the days, especially towards the end of the period, management assigned to us new tasks that required extensive patient record
The Importance of Taking Required Breaks – Ways to Achieve It
Good health is vital for any nurse. Nursing requires working long hours in often very harsh environment dealing with life and death situations. A nurse should be very strong both mentally and physically, so she can provide the much needed care for her patients and successfully be their advocate at all times. “The nurse on break should be free from worry and concern” (WSNA, 2016). Many nurses fail to take their breaks due to inadequate staff coverage, extreme work overload and many other reasons, and that in a long run …show more content…
My hospital’s business week starts on Sunday and end on Saturday. The full time job requirement is to work 3 days each week. Over a period of 5 weeks that amounts to 15 days of work. I made a small Excel document to help me track my breaks: break number per day (BN, meaning how many required breaks taken a day-1 or 2 not including lunch break), break length (BL) and I decided to briefly outline the reasons for not taking breaks, so I can work on whatever I can change and improve in a long run. It was amazing to discover how many unplanned activities and job occurrences came up during the day. The first week of May 8th Thursday and Friday were the same: BN was 1, BL 10. Sunday BN was 1, BL was 15. Continuing in the second week May 15th-21st the data was as follows: for 2 of the days BN was 0, for one day 1, BL ranged 5 to 10 minutes. The recording of the reasons for not taking break started showing some repeating trends. The third week of May 22nd-28th BN was 0 for one day and 1 for 2 days, BL 5-10. Some reasons for failure to take breaks recorded. The fourth week of May 29th-June 4th BN was 0 for 2 days and 1 for 1 day, BL 5-10 minutes. The last 5th week of June 5th-June 11th BN was 0 for all three days, BL 5 minutes for all days. Reasons trends …show more content…
I also analyzed the objective and subjective reasons paying particular attention to the days when I was not able to take any breaks at all. My detailed analysis revealed very interesting trends, some of which did not depend on me. The analysis showed that I was able to take a full 15-minute break only one time during the 15 days of work. Most often I took only 1 break, sometimes no breaks at all and the break length was 5-10 minutes long. The lunch period of half hour is not considered for the purpose of this paper since it is mandatory and a subject to negative administrative actions if not taken. The first histogram named “Break Number (BN)” depicts the ratio between number of work days and the number of breaks taken. I took only 1 break during 7 days out of all 15 work days. The rest of 8 days I did not take any breaks, besides the lunch break. The second histogram named “Break Length (BL)” shows the length of the breaks in minutes for each of the 15 work days for the period. The analysis of the reasons I did not take break showed interesting trends. In the busiest days I either had admitted a new patient or I had one or more patients with severe change of condition up to and including death. On some of the days, especially towards the end of the period, management assigned to us new tasks that required extensive patient record