Swing shift
A swing shift bridges the day and night shifts, usually starting in the afternoon and ending late in the evening, to cover peak admissions or volume.
A swing shift covers the hours between the day and night shifts, usually starting in the afternoon and ending late in the evening or around midnight. In hospital medicine, the swing physician often takes new admissions after the day teams stop admitting, so day hospitalists can finish and hand off on time and the nocturnist starts the night with fewer pending admissions. Emergency departments use swing shifts to add a clinician when arrivals peak. Nurses and other hourly staff work swing or evening shifts too.
Because a swing shift overlaps both the day and night teams, it is easier to plan by the hour than by the day. Gaps and double coverage show up on an hour-by-hour view of the day, not on a monthly grid of names.
Pitfalls: a swing shift that ends at midnight followed by a 7 a.m. day shift, which leaves too little rest; swing shifts that are not counted as evening work in fairness totals; and, for hourly staff, assuming that a shift differential is required by law. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act does not require extra pay for night work; it is set by agreement or policy. A swing shift is also different from a swing bed, a Medicare term for hospital beds that can be used for acute or skilled nursing care.
Common questions
What hours is a swing shift?
Each hospital sets its own. A swing shift usually starts in the afternoon and ends in the late evening, between the day and night shifts, for example 2 p.m. to midnight or 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. The right hours depend on when admissions or arrivals peak in that department and when the day and night teams hand off.
Is a swing shift the same as a swing bed?
No. A swing shift is a block of working hours between the day and night shifts. A swing bed is a Medicare term: a hospital or critical access hospital with CMS approval can use its beds, as needed, for either acute care or post-hospital skilled nursing facility care. The two share a word and nothing else.
How Momentum handles it
In Momentum, day teams, swing and admitter shifts and nocturnist nights are lines with their own hours, and the timeline view shows coverage hour by hour, with gaps and overlaps highlighted.