The most major difficulty in my organization right now is a lack of staff. The COVID-19 epidemic has resulted in a dramatic increase in the volume and acuity of patients, as well as a major flight of employees. A perfect storm of sick nurses requiring extended quarantine time to avoid disease spread, and others leaving full-time roles to seek extremely paid travel assignments, has resulted in a manpower shortfall (Catton, 2021). Nurses in intensive care units are the most affected by the workforce shortage. An ICU nurse often needs substantial training, and many of our units have few experienced nurses to precept and instruct our new nurses. The patient’s needs and the supply of experienced nurses have never been more uneven.
This financial hurdle will be difficult to overcome as a DNP-prepared nurse. The primary measures I would utilize would be to keep the staff that is still on the job and to upskill nurses to a level above that of their present unit. The hiring, training, and onboarding of new employees necessitates a large financial investment on the part of the health care organization, and staff retention protects the loss of this previously made investment (Yoder-Wise, 2018). Budgeting is a matter of balancing supply and demand, and while many ICU nurses departed full-time roles, other service lines, such as the operating room and procedural areas, had lower-than-usual demand. These nurses provide a readily available resource that can be used to supplement clinical areas where there is a greater need. The redeployment of these nurses is a cost-effective technique for providing work hours for the personnel while also supporting the inpatient service lines. Upskilling med/surg nurses into progressive care and progressive care nurses into intensive care units will allow the patient population to be cared for while reducing the need to pay onboarding expenses and time to train new nurses directly into the intensive care unit. Nurses that are already familiar with the facility, charting, and organizational procedures will be able to prepare for more acuity patient care more quickly.
A thorough examination of the operational budget begins with determining the unit’s workload. The number of patients, as well as the number of admissions, discharges, and transfers, influence the number of worked hours per patient day (HPPD). The HPPD can be compared to previous data, and staffing ratios can be determined to meet the corresponding needs (Waxman, 2018). The educational department can be charged with developing fast-track education to upskill nurses, which can include virtual classes, self-guided education modules, and recording of classes that are typically offered on a regular basis, so that nurses can receive this training without having to wait for class offerings. The realignment of all trained personnel is a strategically sound strategy to assist existing personnel while meeting the unit’s needs.
References
H. Catton (2021). Nursing’s future will influence the direction of our health-care system, according to Covid19. 9–11 in International Nursing Review, 68(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12673 (This is a link to another website.)
K. Waxman (2018). Second version of Financial and Business Management for the Doctor of Nursing Practice (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Group.
P. Yoder-Wise (2018). Nursing management and leadership (7th ed.). Mosby.
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