Nurse Staffing Patterns: Balancing Quality, Productivity & Morale - Essay Sample

Introduction

In recent years, there has been immense scrutiny of the nurse staffing patterns as hospital superintendents try to manage costs without necessarily endangering staff morale or service quality. Productivity differs among hospitals because productivity is a function of methods of organization, the level of dependence on nurse extender technicians and staffing patterns. The provision of high-quality services, as well as high productivity in hospitals, require enough number of both skilled and trained nurses. (Johnson, 2018). Many studies from several scholars have shown that the shortage of nurses as a major challenge towards attaining quality medical care. According to the different researchers, the dissatisfaction of nurses has been considered as the cause of workforce shortage in developing countries.

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With the pressure to improve on efficiency and the rising shortage of nurses, the hospital superintendents need to ensure that staffing levels are safe in the hospital wards. The hospitals should, therefore, advance towards flexible staffing resources because this will be of marginal importance to the hospital managers. These resources comprise of overtime or the creation of float staff and nurses to meet the different demands in hospitals. (Johnson, 2018). Nonetheless, there is skepticism concerning the effects to the patients and organizational results for example costs. The flexible staffing blueprints have the possibility of ensuring that the nurses are stationed to rooms where the demand is drastically high.

The staffing budget is the most difficult, if not the most challenging, problems that nurse managers encounter in their places of work. The labor cost devours the major share of an organization's financial capital and thus individuals must always act in a responsible manner as to guarantee financial wealth. The census variation is no ally to the staffing scheme. It is therefore important that the hospital managers minimize the level of staffing within the hospitals for the budget to be minimal. The managers when preparing budgets should focus on employing fewer nurses but who possess adequate training and skills so that efficiency is realized in hospitals. (Hockenberry &Becker, 2016). The minimum staffing impacts positively to organizations because a huge amount of money is saved and thus the net profit in these organizations is drastically high. Minimum staffing impacts on the manager's ability to meet the budgeted numbers by employing the nurses with the correct skills and training. With staffing, the hospital manager can be able to deploy permanent nurses towards and this cuts on the costs when comparing temporary staffing. Temporal staffing increases an organization's operational costs and therefore impacting negatively to management.

The nurse leader is expected to make predictions about the staffing needs for each day. The leader should understand the right balance between staff satisfaction, safety, quality and the fiscal mandate of coming up with the most effective and appropriate staffing plan. The nurse leaders provide leadership to the organizations. They have an obligation of motivating staff to strive towards professional excellence. They also embody the mission, vision, and values of the various units of staff. (Hockenberry &Becker, 2016). The nurse leaders enhance the management functions of the organizations that they serve. They are involved in setting up the strategic goals concerning the organization and they coordinate all the operations. They also take part in the preparation of the budget and are key in ensuring the finance is well utilized. They inspire the staff to take part in initiatives and projects so as to enhance their skills.

The nurse leaders support and represent their nursing staff at all times. They are supposed to provide counsel and listen to the concerns of the staff arising from a given circumstance. They have a central mandate of coaching and mentoring their nursing staff in matters relating to their profession. Nurses are supposed to have a mentoring program from their leaders so that to increase their efficiency in the provision of quality care. They represent their staff and unit within the hospital. (Fast & Rankin, 2018). Nurse Managers participate in firing, hiring, inspiring and developing the skills of the nurses and they are held responsible for the actions of their staff. They are also mandated to ensure the professional development of their staff. The leaders should ensure that all the daily activities of nurses are aligned to the goals of the organization. This is because they act as the decision makers and thus are supposed to carry all the plans of each day. They apply various forms of communication to acquire and share information.

Finance executives and nursing leaders must work closely to reduce costs and raise the value of the profession. The nursing leaders should interact with the finance department as to assist in program planning, education to staff, the quality and patient safety and on understanding quality of outcomes. They take part in making the budgets alongside the finance department and on the ways of minimizing the number of staff. (Leger & Dunham, 2018). Nurse Managers/ leaders design the budgets and set goals in close collaboration with the finance department for their own nursing unit, center, and management. Moreover, the leaders have a mandate of submitting the updated budget to the board of directors for approval. After the approval, the nurse leaders have an obligation of delivering planned programs and services.

After the set-up of the new patient service budget, the nurse leader should understand the different types that are to be adopted within the healthcare organization. The nurse leader should know the capital expenditure, operation costs and the cash at hand they possess. The leader, therefore, is entitled to give an educated guess about operation cost that the machine will accrue the healthcare organization. (Leger & Dunham, 2018). It is also of importance to gather information relating to capital expenditure during the process. The nurse manager should be in a position to gather information relating to the supply costs and the number of skilled personnel that will be in charge of the new patient service unit.

The patient classification system assists the nurse leaders in determining the number of nurses available at the nursing units and the exact number of hours worked by each nurse. This will give a deep analysis of the quality of healthcare that the nurses give to the patient and this information can be used by nurse managers and the finance department for future decision making. Patient classification will be important to the nurse leaders and the finance department in their initial stages of preparing the budgets. (Leger & Dunham, 2018). Through patient classification, it will be easy to determine the resources to be used in a certain unit of nurses as well as the daily operating costs. It helps in knowing the number of nurses to be employed at a given period of time as well as the costs that will be associated with each unit in the hospitals.

References

Fast, O., & Rankin, J. (2018). Rationing nurses: Realities, practicalities, and nursing leadership theories. Nursing inquiry, 25(2), e12227.Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nin.12227

Hockenberry, J. M., & Becker, E. R. (2016). How do hospital nurse staffing strategies affect patient satisfaction?. ILR Review, 69(4), 890-910.Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0019793916642760

Johnson, E. (2018). Nursing Staffing and Patient Outcomes. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/bis437/130/

Leger, M. & Dunham-Taylor, J. (2018). Health care financial management for nurse managers: Merging the heart with the dollar (4th ed.). Retrieved from https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/149/