Financial budgets and staffing per FTEs are critical issues that healthcare leaders are often challenged with, particularly as the pandemic ended and many of the sources for federal funding concluded. Staffing has been challenging and will continue to be a major concern, as hospitals are either laying off, closing the doors altogether or facing tremendous difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Most healthcare organizations use the midnight census to drive budgets and productivity. In procedural areas, annual budgets are often developed based on historical data and the number of procedures anticipated to be performed during the upcoming year, as a result of physician recruitment, new program development, and new procedures. Prior to the COVID pandemic, there were substantial discussions about nursing shortages, however, following the COVID-19 pandemic and various challenges that ensued, the gap in staffing has become even greater. When developing annual budgets, the numbers in health service organizations do not always reflect the human aspects of patient care (acuity) and several other factors.

Labor expense per discharge, the number of patients in beds at midnight and the observation of patients all influence how organizations determine the number of staffing (personnel) allotted for a specific unit/department. Inpatient nursing services traditionally consume a significant portion of a hospital's labor cost/expenses. Because reimbursements for patient care and services continue to decrease in many instances, healthcare leaders must look for opportunities to reduce costs and implement different strategies and models for care delivery (McDermott & Stock, 2007).

What strategies are your organizations implementing to effectively deal with the reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, fee-for-service models, and value-based purchasing?

How are your organizations effectively recruiting and retaining personnel during these challenging times in healthcare?

 

References

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017).The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations(6th ed.). Wiley.

McDermott, C., & Stock, G.N. (2007), "Hospital operations and length of stay performance",InternationalJournal

of Operations & Production Management, 27(9).

1020-1042.http://doi.org/10.1108/01443570710775847