Introduction
Most patient care problems affect the hospitals’ budget. In many cases, it is the responsibility of a nurse leader to assist mitigates the aspects leading to the effect on the healthcare facilities budget. Many of the patient care issues are preventable and influence the health facilities more on their budget. The essay discusses the COVID-19 pandemic patient care problem and its effect on the hospital’s budget and the role of a nurse leader in mitigating the effects.
Patient Care Problem with Its Impact on the Budget
The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in December 2019 has certainly been one of the most difficult challenges that hospitals have experienced in recent times. Despite the clinical challenges, the pandemic has influenced its share of dismal financial challenges. However, financial issues during the COVID-19 pandemic may be associated with the many epidemic control approaches that the healthcare system had to devise to manage the spread of the disease (Ridwan, 2021). Many hospitals had to invest in staffing and opening new areas of treatment and screening of potentially infected people. In addition, most healthcare centers had to adopt the application of telemedicine instead of elective doctor’s visits (Herbert & Thomas, 2021). Despite telemedicine, volumes of the clinic have remained high, with most healthcare facilities operating at full capacities due to the rising number of coronavirus infections.
Further, costs have been driven high because of the intensive care needed to treat patients with COVID-19. While all of these patients need isolation, which has stressed both financial and labor costs, most of them become critically ill. Hence, they need hospital admissions, extended mechanical ventilator support, and extensive intensive care unit (ICU) time (Rupani et al., 2022). In addition, the increased financial expenses during the pandemic were driven by the escalated demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies.
The Role of a Nurse Leader in Relationship to the COVID-19 Problem
A nurse leader’s role is majorly to oversee the nursing department of a healthcare facility. Hospitals’ financial management mainly lies with the chief executive officer (CEO) and financial managers. Conventionally, healthcare facilities’ finances are not in the nursing leaders’ control (Harris et al., 2022).
Nonetheless, with several healthcare entities experiencing financial constraints and decreased budget share, many nurse leaders should control nursing departments with inadequate financing. Therefore, the nursing managers and leader has extended to involvement in some activities associated with the financial operation of hospitals. These roles may range from financial monitoring, planning, and resolution-making to general financial management. Thus, financial management skills and knowledge are essential for nurses in operations (Hill & Scott, 2017). Nurse leaders experience challenges with controlling and reducing expenses in the nursing department without compromising on the quality of care delivered.
Furthermore, when nurse leaders comprehend the financial operation of hospitals, they may receive a better understanding of how they will manage and lead challenges hospitals are experiencing and enhance patient care. In these modern days, nurse leaders’ role needs excellent financial and business skills and knowledge. It is because they manage the most critical part of the hospital’s labor budget and a huge part of the general hospital budget; therefore, they need a more profound comprehension of finance (Hill & Scott, 2017).
Nonetheless, nurse leaders’ financial management area is still underdeveloped due to the following factors. They lack intrinsic motivation, have inadequate education and training in nursing economics and financial management, and have unclear reference management practices. Thus, it is important to pill pressure on the nursing education system to resolve this gap in the preparation of nurses to assist them in a better position to fulfill the demands of modern nursing realities (Vana & Tazbir, 2021). In addition, healthcare facilities should invest more in financial training and education for their nurses.
Consequently, it calls for nurse leaders to have a better understanding of financial management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many new problems will arise comprising the transitions of treatment, care coordination, and the execution of post-COVID-19 rehabilitation healthcare services for patients with their families. This was evident when many people started to recover from the acute infection of the coronavirus (Harris et al., 2022). Primary prevention, contact tracing, and their effect on frontline doctors can all persist to rise in the future, compelling the healthcare system to adapt to meet the emerging challenges in care delivery.
The Regulatory Agencies and Policies Involved in the Issue
The government is one of the regulatory agencies that were engaged in the financial management of the COVID-19 pandemic in healthcare facilities. Through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government has been capable of identifying issues emerging because of the pandemic and enacting specific actions to enhance the coverage of healthcare services via Medicare and Medicaid (Sawad & Turkistani, 2021). The actions entail Medicare COVID-19 flexibilities and waivers, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare coverage, and compensation for therapeutics and vaccines. In addition, the CARES Act Provider Relief Fund offers financial relief to hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers during the pandemic, among other recommendations (Ravichandran et al., 2022). The private insurer was another regulatory agency, which was engaged in financial management during this period of COVID-19.
Organizational Budgets
The expense budget is one of the healthcare organizational budgets that the pandemic would influence, for example, the cost of offering healthcare services. The budget may be because of direct medical expenses or resource usage burden. Direct medical expenses are associated with COVID-19 screening and treatment, vaccination costs, and deferred care. Most hospitals had to cancel non-emergency procedures with deferred care (Ravichandran et al., 2022).
Hence, most Americans had to postpone their care because they sheltered at home to end the coronavirus spread. This may increase the healthcare cost as the conditions may have deteriorated because of little attention. Further, the resource burden may be because of developing testing agents, creating COVID-19 units for isolating and treating patients with infection, and increasing ICU admissions, and hospitalizations (Araja et al., 2022). In addition, the resource utilization burden may be because of a surge in demand for special medical supplies and equipment such as mechanical ventilators and PPEs.
Moreover, the statistical budget would be affected by the pandemic. Hospitals utilize this budget to gather statistical data from gathering it within the entire healthcare sector. This budget aims to spot the healthcare services delivered in hospitals. In this case, the budget will increase because of gathering information from all patients screened for coronavirus infection (Ridwan, 2021). Further, for those people who test positive for the virus, data such as admissions, symptoms, reactions, and vaccine effectiveness should be gathered to help in data surveillance and projection of COVID-19. Finally, the operational budget will increase because of the infection and the aim of it approximates future incomes and expenses (Pedersen & Du Gay, 2021). Therefore, with uncertainty around the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of COVID-19, this budget will likely increase.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic was undoubtedly the most challenging problem for healthcare in the past two years. The pandemic posed medical and financial challenges to patient care. In addition, it highlighted some of the weaknesses in the nurse leaders’ role in the financial management of hospitals. This has necessitated the need for them to be trained and educated on matters concerning financial management to facilitate smooth operations in the healthcare system.
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