Pros And Cons Of Inadequate Nurse Staffing

When making the schedule for a 30 bed unit with a temporary vacant nurse position, considering the use of per diem nurses, use of overtime for your current staff, or just working with the available staff needs to be decided by the nurse manager. The pros and cons of each option will be discussed.
When using per diem nurses or giving overtime to the current nurses, the one of the concerns is budget. Even though per diem nurses are paid more hourly than a normal hourly pay for a current nurse, this changes when looking at overtime pay. Per diem nurses cost $35.00 an hour, which costs a total of $420.00 for a complete 12 hour shift verses overtime for a current nurse, which costs $39.00 an hour, totaling $468.00 for a complete 12 hour shift. Sometimes the use of per diem nurses are frowned upon, but looking at them in a financial aspect as described above, money can actually be saved by filling in a per diem
This option would definitely save money, but at what cost? The budget is not always the most important aspect. “Inadequate nurse staffing affects patients, their loved ones, future and current nursing staff, and the hospitals in which they are employed” (Martin, 2015, p. 4). Inadequate staffing can be seen as conflicting with ethical nursing practice. It has been shown to have unsatisfactory patient outcomes, as well as dissatisfaction from the nurses about their job. (Martin, 2015). Nurses’ working with inadequate staffing have been shown to miss providing basic nursing care, such as “turning, feeding, setting up meals, bathing/skin care, mouth care, patient assessments in each shift and assistance with toileting” (Cho, Kim, Yeon, You, and Lee, 2015, p.271). Failure to be able to take proper care of your patients’ adds to job satisfaction. Would you be ok working short staffed and knowing you would fail at providing basic nursing care to your