Nursing Scheduling Mode and Experience from the Medical Teams in Aiding Hubei Province During the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Systematic Scoping Review of 17 Studies

Abstract

Introduction Due to COVID-19 outbreak, since January 24, 2020, national medical teams from across the country and the armed forces have been dispatched to aid Hubei. The present review was designed to timely summarize the existing frontline information about nursing scheduling mode with special focus on the length of shifts with the aim to contribute to improve the nurses’ job satisfaction and the quality of nursing services. Methods Articles from Jan 2020 to October 2020 were retrieved from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data and Weipu Information, with the terms “COVID-19”, “designated hospital”, “Hubei-assisted”, “makeshift hospital”, “nursing”, “nursing shift”, “whole-system takeover” and variations of these, in the title and abstract fields and the Boolean combinations of these words as the retrieval strategy. Results Seventeen journal articles have been included in the target field, from the nurses in aiding Hubei Province, four kinds of shift length, 2-hour (h), 3-h, 4-h and 6-h shift have been considered, the main nursing scheduling mode adopted in designated hospitals for COVID-19 patients was dynamic scheduling based on workload, flexible scheduling based on working hours, workload and the number of critically ill patients admitted, humanized scheduling based on the daily reported health status of the nurses, and professional-integrated scheduling according to the professional distribution of nurses on the basis of four-hour shift length, and in makeshift hospitals for mild patients, the scheduling mode was 6-h based correspondingly. Conclusion The descriptive results of the present systematic review shed light on the challenges and practical solutions of nursing scheduling mode in the context of cross-regional medical assistance. Additionally, the present systematic review could provide the academic community of nurses, nurse managers and administrators with baseline information and scientific productions from the content’s points of view in the target field.

Management of a nursing unit in a COVID‐19 shelter hospital in China: A case study

“…Undoubtedly, reasonable scheduling could promote team cooperation and efficiency. A systematic review of 17 studies about nursing scheduling mode confirmed that most of them were in 4‐h shifts (12/17) and fixed‐grouping scheduling (9/17) in COVID‐19 wards (Zhang, Huang et al., 2021). Therefore, it was recommended to conduct fixed‐grouping scheduling, while the nurse leaders should take into account the nurses’ professional background, age, gender, education level and work experience before grouping.…”

Nurses' job burnout after the first peak of COVID-19 in Northeast China: a descriptive study

“…Based on the research results, in order to cope with the arrival of the next peak, we propose the following three suggestions: First of all, the government should give priority to the protection, care and care measures for front-line medical personnel. Second, hospitals need to ease the crisis of nursing staff allocation at the peak of COVID-19, scienti cally arrange nursing shifts [43], reduce the number of night shifts of nurses who are infected, nurses working in COVID-19 wards should rotate regularly [44], provide psychological assistance [35], create a relaxed working environment [45], actively improve the relationship within the team [46], and provide family help, Finally, personal nurses should improve their ability to cope with stress.…”

Experiences and needs of front-line nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis

“…In response to the shortage of nurses, a reasonable scheduling could optimize workforce allocation and alleviate the situation of nurse shortage to some extent. When scheduling, workload, working hours, and the number of critically ill patients should be considered (102). Meanwhile, sending medical staff to the worst infection areas was a practicable solution, and a sustainable support echelon should be established.…”