Our laboratory supervisors currently work rotating weekends.  This is as a supervisor and not a bench tech.  We would like to gather some information from other facilities regarding supervisory practices.

 

1.  Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"?

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech?

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech?  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"?

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)?

5.  How big is your facility?

 

Thanks for your help.  I always get great feedback from all my lab friends here.

Presently we have a manager for each department.

We are not on site 24/7, nor do we get call pay, but we are expected to take calls at home for technical issues.

We had a charge tech for the evening shift, but that has been eliminated and the bench techs are expected to resolve and or communicate the issue to the appropriate manager.

We don't normally work the bench except for vacation or urgent coverage.

We are a mid-size community hospital (250 beds?).

Liz

We a Reference Laboratory in the UK, and so things are slightly different.

 

Our core hours are 08.00 to 21.00 Monday to Friday, but from 08.00 to 09.00 and from 17.00 to 21.00 there is not, per se, a supervisor (senior, chief or senior chief biomedical scientist) on site (although the person working the early or late shift may be an employee of this grade (but working on the bench, rather than as a supervisor).

 

At all other times, the laboratory is covered by an "on-call" biomedical scientist.  Again, this person may, or may not be, a senior, chief or senior chief biomedical scientist, although they are usually an experienced biomedical scientist or a senior biomedical scientist.

 

These days, the Head of Laboratory (equivalent to the senior chief biomedical scientist) is no longer doing "on-call" for medical reasons, and I (as a sort of national senior chief biomedical scientist, and 60-years-old - and beginning to feel every nano-second of it!) am about to come off the on-call rota.

 

Everyone, irrespective of grade, gets paid exactly the same as everyone else for "on-call" duties, which means that some gain and some lose - but that is fair, as we are all doing exactly the same work.

 

At all times during the "on-call" session, both the senior chief biomedical scientist and I carry our work mobile telephones, and are expected to give advice to the person actually "on-call", for which we get paid nothing.

1. On call
2. N/A
3. We have different levels of techs.  On off shifts we ensure we have senior techs on the schedule.  They are not compensated extra for when there is no supervisor, it is an expectation of their position.
4. Can't speak for the other labs, our blood bank is not part of the clinical labs.
5. 800+ beds, plus a very active (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) outpatient infusion clinic.

Our supervisors work weekends every 6th weekend.

 

1.  We work normal hours 7-3 but are expected to be able to answer the phone at all times of day/night.

2.  I am almost always the bench tech but there are days I have a bench tech and I do my supervisor work.

3. No.

4.  Yes

5.  165 bed

 

1.  Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"? No

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech? it's a mix

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech?  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"? we have a "tech in charge" on weekends and anytime there isn't a supervisor on site. They are compensated $1 per hour to be "in charge". This has worked out well for us.

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)? We have a core lab supervisor, BB supervisor, and senior techs

5.  How big is your facility? 180 beds

 

1.  Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"?

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech?

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech?  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"?

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)?

5.  How big is your facility?

 

1. Mainly no, but our safety protocols say that in case of emergency (like train out of track, several patients coming, war, gas leak etc.) we need to call a supervisor, so I assume we will catch one if we need. We have their personal numbers in our protocols. 

2. If we need to call, we just start calling in the order in the protocol and hope someone will answer.

3. They are basically not "in charge". We tend to handle most of the things by ourselves and there haven't been any issue I know that supervisor needed to be alerted. Although if they are they will be compensated.

4. Yes we do and we have all their numbers in case of emergency and also our lab supervisors supervisor numbers as well as the head of the department (doctor).

5. In the department I work there are maybe 300 BLS (phleb, microb, pathology, chem, hemat). Our company has also two other departments that are smaller.

It can vary here but in general...

 

1.  Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"?

They take call.  They work M-F, days.

 

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech?

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech?  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"?

No charge techs here.

 

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)?

We have three managers, under them, coordinators for BB, Micro and Histo.  A few other techs do a fair amount of work keeping track of Lab IT and technical coordination.

 

5.  How big is your facility?

270 bed level 2 trauma hospital in Michigan,

 

Our supervisors work weekends every 6th weekend.

 

1.  We work normal hours 7-3 but are expected to be able to answer the phone at all times of day/night.

2.  I am almost always the bench tech but there are days I have a bench tech and I do my supervisor work.

3. No.

4.  Yes

5.  165 bed

 

 

That fits me very closely, though I don't routinely work weekends anymore. I do fill in on weekends for vacations, maternity leave, etc and am always on the bench when I do.

1.   Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"?  We do not have a supervisor on-site 24/7.  We are M-F, Day Shift (though we used to rotate weekends).  Do we "take call?"  Define take...  ..we are called at home (and with a lot of new Techs. right now, those calls are frequent, especially for me as the Blood Bank Supervisor; but we are NOT compensated in any way).  PM Shift has a Lead Tech. and she rotates weekends.  When Lead is not here (or on weekends), there is a Charge Tech. on each shift and I believe they do receive Charge Tech. pay (which is not much).

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech?  When the supervisor is working, we do sometimes have to help cover the bench; but more often, not.....

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech? See above  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"? Charge Techs. yes....Supervisors NO.

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)? Yes

5.  How big is your facility? About 185 beds

 

All of that being said, I have previously worked in a number of Facilities and find that this differs from one to another.  Sometimes as a Supervisor I have had to rotate weekends and Holidays (even in a very large Hospital), and sometimes not.  I wish we got compensated in some way for the calls we take at home (for me, currently, can be 3-4 evenings a week; several times an evening; plus 0-1 nights a week; plus any shift on the weekend).  If not "on call" pay, I think we should get Comp. Time.

 

Brenda Hutson

1.   Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"?  We do not have a supervisor on-site 24/7.  We are M-F, Day Shift (though we used to rotate weekends).  Do we "take call?"  Define take...  ..we are called at home (and with a lot of new Techs. right now, those calls are frequent, especially for me as the Blood Bank Supervisor; but we are NOT compensated in any way).  PM Shift has a Lead Tech. and she rotates weekends.  When Lead is not here (or on weekends), there is a Charge Tech. on each shift and I believe they do receive Charge Tech. pay (which is not much).

2.  If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech?  When the supervisor is working, we do sometimes have to help cover the bench; but more often, not.....

3.  If they are on call, is there a charge tech? See above  Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"? Charge Techs. yes....Supervisors NO.

4.  Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)? Yes

5.  How big is your facility? About 185 beds

 

All of that being said, I have previously worked in a number of Facilities and find that this differs from one to another.  Sometimes as a Supervisor I have had to rotate weekends and Holidays (even in a very large Hospital), and sometimes not.  I wish we got compensated in some way for the calls we take at home (for me, currently, can be 3-4 evenings a week; several times an evening; plus 0-1 nights a week; plus any shift on the weekend).  If not "on call" pay, I think we should get Comp. Time.

 

Brenda Hutson

Our process is the same as Brenda.  Supervisors do not work weekends or holidays but are available by phone.  There is a charge tech who gets paid extra.  Our hospital is about 300 beds

1. Supervisors work M-F on day shift, no weekends/holidays. (We use to but a consultant came in and said we needed some perk  )

2. Supervisors work the bench and do supervisory duties as workload or staffing permits.

3. No charge tech or supervisor on 2nd/3rd shift. Supervisors take calls 24/7. Being the Blood Bank supervisor, they call me all the time, at ALL hours.

4. There is a supervisor for each section of the lab.

5. About 300 beds

1. Do you have laboratory supervisors physically on-site 24/7 or do they take call on "off hours"? We have supervisors here M-F from 5 am to 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 7-3. On eve/night shift, the techs just call the supervisor for that department; one tech is assigned to be charge tech for each shift and they have to be supervisory qualified per NYS Dept of Health standards.

2. If they are on-site, is it as a supervisor or a working bench tech? We are not allowed to work the bench, it's a union hospital.

3. If they are on call, is there a charge tech? Are they compensated extra to be "in charge"? Yes, charge techs get charge pay when they take charge.

4. Do you have a supervisor for every department (micro, BB, chem, heme, phleb, etc.)? Yes, but chem/heme are combined (Core Lab Supervisor), and we are trying to get a position for Eve/Night shift supervisor because it is becoming difficult for the day shift supervisors to keep up with competency requirements.

5. How big is your facility? About 380 beds.

We have supervisors for each section (still an opening in one department for a while now). Supervisors do participate in weekend rotations currently as bench techs but this is going to be phased out soonish (at least for core laboratory). We also have an evening shift supervisor.

In the absence of a supervisor, there's a core laboratory charge tech who isn't compensated for additional duties and is generally a senior technologist. We have a bench-support on-call system but no formal on-call system for supervisory things, we're just available 24/7. I had to take a call last night while at a funeral home viewing.

There's talk about getting compensated for electronic consultation. There's also talk of getting a night shift supervisor. Who knows. ~300 beds.

Sadly we do not get paid extra for out of hours work for being 'in charge' as staff are deemed competent to work unsupervised.

 

632 bed hospital and 971 over our two sites.

Edited September 10, 20159 yr by Auntie-D