ice breakers

terese hudson thrall

the relationship between nursing and finance executives is often frosty. promoting a thaw is in everybody's best interest.

UGH to them, they will never get me liking them. As far as I am concerned people in finance are responsible for deaths and injuries of many patients due to penny pinching. That goes double for their managment lackys.

Sorry but the fact is that the product of hospitals is nursing care.

Executives whose yearly pay is more than a nurse at their facilities will be paid in a lifetime are not fooling me when they claim to be trying to keep from going bankrupt.

It is their job to ensure to know what it takes to run a hospital.

Hospital CEOs join the $1m club

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/08/31/hospital_ceos_join_the_1m_club/

More on hospital executive pay: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2004-09-29-nonprofit-salaries_x.htm

I happen to report to our CFO. Learned a lot about finances from him. Minute I open my mouth about clinical info, healthcare insurance issues, his eyes glaze off and goes huh, slow down, explain simple terms. Comments that nurses are a dime a dozen retracted after my retort that CFO's are a dime a dozen too this days.

We each have our strengths and weaknesses, learning to talk to each other to see how nursing affects financials is important.

CFO recently made up P+L (Profit and loss) budget form for each of our branch managers to be able to play with and change #'s for homecare variables we track that affect bottom line: # admissions, # recerts, # therapy visits projected, # patients with less than 5 visits, % referrals converted to homecare admissions etc. He listed impact change in # would affect bottom line.

At our clinical managers meeting yesterday, several mgrs stated couldn't believe how few # changes would significantly impact $$$ and profit/loss to agency. Each branch can now decide what # target they want for each indicator.

Cl Mgrs complained didn't have enough staff to be able to admit patients to homecare timely. Finance Dept said they had enough staff--I told em they were looking at wrong #'s. So CFO devised formula to base # staff on:

Referrals accepted month / FTE Staff minus staff in training, on medical leave or leaving homecare (rare) = # actual staff needed per branch per discipline

Since that occurred, found 2 branches UNDER by 2-3 FTE positions. HR and Finance now run this report every 2 weeks to make sure adequate staff hired.

This is an example how working cooperatively and understanding financial picture can help manage facilities $$$ wisely AND be able to generate more business too!

Patients and nurses are blessed that you were able to teach the CFO and that he or she was willing to learn.