Staffing and Scheduling
Staffing and Scheduling
The debate on safe and adequate nurse staffing has remained a growing and controversial issue in healthcare. The most important issue is determining a safe number of nurses that should ideally work on a unit. In an article by The Journal of Nursing Administration it is stated that, “over the course of the last decade, hospital restructuring, spurred in part by a move to managed care payment structures and development of market competition among health care delivery organizations, led to aggressive cost cutting. Human resources, historically a major cost center for hospitals, and nurse staffing in particular, were often the focus of work redesign and workforce reduction efforts. Cuts in nursing staff led to heavier workloads, which heightened concern about the adequacy of staffing levels in hospitals” (JONA, 2000). Therefore the most important task is to calculate the number of nurses required for each unit. The following text describes the appropriate calculation necessary to determine the number of nurses on a hypothetical unit that has 50 beds and is a Medical-Surgical patient population with an average daily census of 45 patients. There are 45 patients that require 4 nursing hours per nurse per day per year equaling 65,700 care hours. Each full time employee’s (FTE) has 2080 paid hours at 80% productivity or 1,664 productive hours per FTE. Therefore the number of FTEs equals 65,700 care hours divided by 1664 equaling 39.5 FTEs. This gives the unit 65700 hours per year or 180 hours per day. Because there are 8 hours shifts, 180 hours divided by 8 hours equals 22.5 person shifts. A second, different calculation figures FTEs by knowing that the average daily census is 45, nursing hours per patient is 4, and when understanding that an FTE works 5 of 7 days a week, with an average productivity factor of 1.14, with a potential productive hours in 1 workday of 7.5 hours, yields the
The debate on safe and adequate nurse staffing has remained a growing and controversial issue in healthcare. The most important issue is determining a safe number of nurses that should ideally work on a unit. In an article by The Journal of Nursing Administration it is stated that, “over the course of the last decade, hospital restructuring, spurred in part by a move to managed care payment structures and development of market competition among health care delivery organizations, led to aggressive cost cutting. Human resources, historically a major cost center for hospitals, and nurse staffing in particular, were often the focus of work redesign and workforce reduction efforts. Cuts in nursing staff led to heavier workloads, which heightened concern about the adequacy of staffing levels in hospitals” (JONA, 2000). Therefore the most important task is to calculate the number of nurses required for each unit. The following text describes the appropriate calculation necessary to determine the number of nurses on a hypothetical unit that has 50 beds and is a Medical-Surgical patient population with an average daily census of 45 patients. There are 45 patients that require 4 nursing hours per nurse per day per year equaling 65,700 care hours. Each full time employee’s (FTE) has 2080 paid hours at 80% productivity or 1,664 productive hours per FTE. Therefore the number of FTEs equals 65,700 care hours divided by 1664 equaling 39.5 FTEs. This gives the unit 65700 hours per year or 180 hours per day. Because there are 8 hours shifts, 180 hours divided by 8 hours equals 22.5 person shifts. A second, different calculation figures FTEs by knowing that the average daily census is 45, nursing hours per patient is 4, and when understanding that an FTE works 5 of 7 days a week, with an average productivity factor of 1.14, with a potential productive hours in 1 workday of 7.5 hours, yields the
References: Aiken L.H. Hospital restructuring: does it adversely affect care and outcomes? Journal of Nursing Administration (JONA). 2000;30(10):457–65. Sapatkin, D. (July, 2012 13). Penn study examines link between nurse burnout, care. Retrieved fromhttp://articles.philly.com/2012-07-31/news/32943021_1_infection-data-infection- Huber, D.L. (2010). Leadership and nursing care management (4th ed.). Maryland Heights, MO: Saunders-Elsevier. Kalisch, B. (n.d.). Missed nursing care: A qualitative study. (2006). Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 21(4), 306-313.