Question

Personnel costs are the largest budgetary expenditure in an organization. When budget cuts are being considered, what information would the nurse leader use to defend minimally safe staffing ratios?

Describe the information or evidence that you, as the nurse leader, would consider relevant in making your case to administration and finance.

Answer 1

Quality care is the ultimate aim for the health care institutions.The importance for the minimally safe staffing becomes priority on facing challanges and restrain in financial crisis.To support the discussion keeping keen interest over the fact that Hospitals facing financial uncertainty do sought to reduce nurse staffing as a way to increase profitability ,the following points are to be addressed:

1. Nurse staffing has been found to be important in terms of quality of patient care and nursing related outcomes.
2. Nurse staffing can provide a competitive advantage to hospitals and as a result better financial performance, particularly in more competitive markets.
3. Adequate staffing can increase operating cost with higher levels of RN.
4. Adequate staffing results in better patient outcome.
5. High patient-Nurse ratios results in negative impact on job satisfaction,stress,burnouts,turnover and poor quality of care.Which can be address by maintaining the app and adequate number of staffing via adequate planning.

Discussion on the budgetary expenses,the Nurse manager should highlight on the aspects of the low staffs and its impact on the organisation.For instances limited staffs can result in hinderence of the patient care which ultimately effects both Nurse and patient and the organisation at large resulting in more turnouts which can reflect an ineffective management of an organization.

This can be supported by an artical on "The Effects of Nurse Staffing on Hospital Financial Performance: Competitive Versus Less Competitive Markets"published on 2015 Aug 20 in Health Care Manage Rev. 2013 Apr-Jun; 38(2): 146–155 by Damian Everhart ,Mona Al-Amin,June Nogle and Robert Weech-Maldonado which states a practical implication that Hospitals in more competitive hospital markets should reconsider reducing nursing staff, as these cost cutting measures may be inefficient and negatively affect financial performance and that  Nurse staffing is an integral part of this strategy. Therefore, using the Resource-Based Views the argument is that of giving the importance of nurses in the overall delivery of healthcare, and that hospitals in markets with higher levels of competition must successfully recruit and retain nurses to achieve a competitive advantage in market. This will eventually have a significant positive effect on overall hospital financial performance rather than unnecessarily reducing the Nursing staffs.