What steps must health care employers take to avoid using mandatory overtime?
A health care employer must prudently plan for patient care emergencies and meet routine staffing needs without using mandatory overtime by implementing a Nurse Coverage Plan. Such plan should take into account typical patterns of staff absenteeism due to illness, leave, bereavement and other similar factors, and reflect the health care employer’s typical levels and types of patients served by the health care facility. The Plan must identify and describe as many alternative staffing methods as are available to the health care employer to ensure adequate staffing through means other than use of mandatory overtime including, but not limited to, contracts with per diem nurses, contracts with nurse registries and employment agencies for nursing services, arrangements for assignment of nursing floats, requesting an additional day of work from off-duty employees, and development and posting of a list of nurses seeking voluntary overtime. The health care employer must document all attempts to
