Four-day, forty-hour workweek for neonatal intensive care nurses.

The four-day, 40-hour alternative work schedule was presented to professional nurses in the special care nursery at a hospital and medical center in Chicago, Illinois. Within a few months, every nurse in the unit, in addition to those newly recruited, elected to work the alternative schedule. The project was evaluated at 12 and 18 months, with encouraging results. The nurses perceived the 10-hour day as a major structural support enabling them to provide optimal patient care while coping with work-related stress.