How do nurse faculty members spend their time?  How do they assess key aspects of their work-life?
 
In 2010 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education program (EIN) conducted a nationwide survey of full-time nurse faculty focusing on their employment characteristics, workloads and attitudes toward work-life. More than 3,000 respondents completed the survey, answering questions about more than 60 characteristics of work-life.
 
Now, using an online tool—the Nurse Faculty Query (NuFAQs)—you can search the survey results. The interactive tool allows you to customize the findings to suit your interests in faculty with particular backgrounds or rank, in specific settings or circumstances.
 
To see a brief demonstration and begin using this resource, click here.
Read more about NuFAQs in the latest issue of Sharing Nursing’s Knowledge.

More physicians are working less than full time, seeking part-time or flexible schedules instead, according to a survey released earlier this month. The 2011 Physician Retention Survey, conducted by physician search firm Cejka Search and the American Medical Group Association, found that 22 percent of male physicians and 44 percent of female physicians worked less than full time in 2011.

Physicians from two particular age groups are driving this trend, according to American Medical News. Men nearing retirement age and women at the beginning or middle of their careers—presumably when they are raising children—are most likely to work part time or to insist on a flexible work schedule.

Nurses are also taking advantage of flexible work schedules, NurseZone.com reports, and more employers are offering programs and policies to improve employees’ work-life balance. Hospitals are offering on-site fitness centers, child care, incentive programs for employees to eat healthier meals and smoking cessation programs, the story reports, to help staff members live healthier and more balanced lives while they are at work.

“You can’t give of yourself [as an employee] if you are not whole,” Karen Drenkard, PhD, RN, an alumna of the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows program and executive director of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), told NurseZone.com. ANCC’s Magnet Recognition program and Pathway to Excellence program encourage flexible staffing models, healthy work environments and work-life balance for nurses. ANCC’s participating organizations “are very deliberate and very thoughtful about making sure their nurses are whole,” she added.

What do you think? Is flexible scheduling important for health care professionals? Are there other ways organizations can help their employees manage their work-life balance? Register below to leave a comment.

A recent study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded RN Work Project takes a close look at state rules capping nurses’ mandatory overtime hours. As of 2010, 16 states had imposed such caps, with the goal of avoiding errors caused by long hours and insufficient rest between shifts.

The study concludes that the laws seem to be working. “It’s important to policy-makers to understand the impact of the remedies they devise for particular problems,” says study co-author Sung-Heui Bae, PhD, MPH, RN. “What we learned in this study is that it’s working. The tool is effective. Other states with similar objectives can follow suit and expect similar results.”

“The purpose of capping mandatory overtime is to make hospitals safer for patients and nurses,” says co-author Carol Brewer, PhD, RN, FAAN. “Nurses routinely work long shifts, often as long as 12 hours straight. These laws were intended to prevent hospitals from piling mandatory overtime on top of such shifts—a practice that research shows can increase the likelihood of mistakes. The laws seem to be accomplishing their objective.”