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Controlling Nurse Labor Costs
By taking a new approach to nurse overtime, the use of supplemental labor, and retention efforts, healthcare organizations can save money without sacrificing jobs.
The key to this ability to pull together granular data often from multiple sources in away that nursing managers can easily understand what is going on without the need to be technical or spending hours a week in Excel. Our client NYU won a Smithsonian award for building exactly this kind of nursing productivity tool. http://www.informationbuilders.com/applications/nyu_honor
"A nurse is a nurse is a nurse" no longer works in this day of advanced technologies and care. You cannot expect a pediatric nurse to take care of cardiac patients or an OB nurse to handle the ER. When a nurse is pulled[INVALID]like the author suggests hospitals do[INVALID]to an unfamiliar floor she is expected to work as though she always worked there[INVALID]often taking a team. I would like to see a study of errors with particular attention to whether that was the nurse's usual floor. I bet the rate of errors goes up dramatically with the rate of pulls. Even with orientation to specific floors pulling is a dangerous practice because your skill sets for each floor are entirely different and often the medicines used are entirely different.
Well, this is no startling revelation to this 45+ years of nursing service and commitment " old nurse" I have made this statement more than once in my career about using agencies for all the incorrect reasons. and have lost jobs over having an educated opinion. You need a nurse with knowledge and experience to save a life and teach the newbies. Sincerely, Linda K
It costs $92,000+ to replace a med-surg RN, and $145,000+ to replace a specialty care RN (OLD statistics from Nursing Economics, 2003). Nurses are expected to care for others, without employers caring for them. The abuses are rampant and growing, especially as the $$ is being affected. Medicare reimbursement will soon become tied to patient satisfaction scores, and medical facilities are sending nurses to "customer service" training! Until staff nurses are actually heard, there will be growing dissatisfaction for nurses, patients, and facilities alike. There's been enough research, folks; health leader, heal thyself!
{Plus, it provides a safer environment for the patients because the unit has a stable team," she explains.} Wow...how lovely that patient safety was a serendipitous byproduct of cost savings! God bless the holy dollar.