Introduction
Healthcare managers regard budgets as crucial tools that help them to regulate their facilities’ finances and other processes to guarantee efficient and sustainable operations. This paper provides an evidence-based workforce budgeting framework that seeks to help Saint Louis Medical Center (SLMC) in controlling financial expenditures in its Cardiac Unit. Issues to be captured in this budget include hours per patient day (HPPD) in the selected department and the anticipated census. HPPD will also be applied to estimate the Cardiac Unit’s Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) and labor costs among other vital elements.
Steps to Follow to Develop the Budget
As a nurse manager, creating a financial plan that fulfills SLMC’s necessities pertaining to its Cardiac Unit requires me to get information related to the hospital’s capital and workforce status. I will also need details captured in its existing budget to assess what needs to be eliminated or added to enhance patients’ outcomes (Beck, Leider, Coronado, & Harper, 2017). I will also need to call upon all stakeholders to take part in the budget development procedure to ensure quality service delivery and effective operations in the Cardiac Unit.
Analysis of the Proposed Sample Budget
As earlier mentioned, SLMC’s tentative budget provides information regarding the selected department’s HPPD. The Cardiac Unit is expected to spend 80,000 hours in 12 months attending to patients. This approach is well founded because it indicates the hospital’s awareness of the positive impact of doctors’ close interactions with patients on their recovery processes (Walsh, 2016). All budgetary allocations are based on the HPPD figure. This strategy implies quality service delivery, which reduces readmission cases in SLMC’s Cardiac Unit. Using the estimated HPPD value makes it possible to approximate the facility’s FTEs, which are set at 45.25, the required positions based on their types and number of shifts among nurses in the Cardiac Unit, and labor charges among others.
Strategies for Improving Budget Development for SCLM’s Cardiac Unit
Ensuring proper budgetary allocations requires nurse managers to rely not only on the existing financial information but also the input of all appropriate stakeholders (Pufpaff, Mcintosh, Thomas, Elam, & Irwin, 2015). This strategy eliminates conflicts and poor-quality services, especially when medical practitioners in the selected Cardiac Unit are allocated insufficient resources, including human capital and time, to serve patients (Beck et al., 2017). Hence, the respective healthcare administrator should involve all staff in the budget development process. In addition, according to Walsh (2016), this nurse executive should have a list of all anticipated patient outcomes to be achieved through the facilitation of the budget established. Discarding any redundant roles or activities that may result in wastage of financial resources and human capital should also be done to ensure cost saving.
Accomplishing this goal requires the respective healthcare administrator to consult information from SLMC’s previous financial and strategic plans, including the prevailing developments in the sector and the facility’s goals, mission, and vision (Walsh, 2016). As a result, the developed budget will ensure that medical practitioners have the appropriate resources and time to deliver quality services to patients, hence ultimately boosting the image of the Cardiac Unit and the entire SLMC.
Conclusion
The healthcare sector relies on finances to cater for labor charges, equipment costs, and services offered to patients. Since these resources are limited, it is crucial for nurse executives to develop evidence-based budgets, which ensure that all departments have sufficient monetary, time, and human capital allocations to facilitate their operations. This study has focused on SLMC’s Cardiac Unit whose budget sufficiently captures elements such as HPPD, FTEs, and labor costs among other crucial aspects.
References
Beck, A. J., Leider, J. P., Coronado, F., & Harper, E. (2017). State health agency and local health department workforce: Identifying top development needs. American Journal of Public Health, 107(9), 1418-1424.
Pufpaff, L. A., Mcintosh, C. E., Thomas, C., Elam, M., & Irwin, M. K. (2015). Meeting the health care needs of students with severe disabilities in the school setting: Collaboration between nurses and special education teachers. Psychology in the Schools, 52(7), 683-701.
Walsh, K. (2016). Managing a budget in healthcare professional education. Annals of Medical & Health Sciences Research, 6(2), 71-73.