Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Floattng Through Uncharted Waters, Amanda Moscatelli

Theses and Graduate Projects

The act of floating or flexible staffing is a cost effective way to maintain nursing staffing levels through times of shortages and surplus. While the financial and patient care benefits are abundant, the culture of floating tends to be negative. Nurses cite difficulty adapting to a changed environment, caring for different patient populations, and working with different staff members as the most difficult and anxiety provoking aspects of floating. Although nurses at a large Midwest medical center frequently float across a number of nursing units, they receive no formal education on the practice of floating. Introduction of an online floating …