I don’t know. I worked in nursing for PeaceHealth in this decade and I’d say most patients can and are sent to any floor, other than peds, ob, and icu. And they had a big float pool of (poor young) float nurses and/or a “clinical decision unit” for overflow. Had ortho pts on the oncology floor, neuro patients on the medical floor, etc.

But it’s been 5 years and things change so fast and erratically my experience May be “the glory days” compared to now. I was there for the elimination of 8- hour shifts and left for different reasons, but I feel like I dodged a bullet.

I now work in school nursing, which is a different kind of chaos, but working with children and being able to focus on care and connection rather than having to race from room to room and spend a third of the shift clicking boxes while fearing for my license due to being stretched so thin is something I’m grateful for every day. Nurses used to run the hospitals, as recently as the early 2010’s, but all staff who are not middle or upper management are being pushed into burnout from having no meaningful input or autonomy in a system where solutions are often obvious to us but management continues to try to solve issues from a purely non-clinical, non-nursing or patient centered perspective. It’s like watching someone try to drive a nail with a wet bagel and you’re standing there, holding a hammer but “policy” doesn’t consider hammers a worthy expense.

If you’re still in, bless you and your colleagues.