Nurse Staffing Costs

Nurses Professionalism

Published

When hospitals look to cut costs -- as many of them have in the last decade -- nurses are the hardest hit. How has your employer dealt with staffing costs? How has it impacted you?

I agree wholeheartedly. But, to be fair, we wouldn't need health care consultants if hospitals were managed more efficiently/effectively.

Out of curiosity, why arent more ex nurse managers/leaders healthcare consultants?

This is something ive frequently wondered. Especially since A great deal of positions for "consultants" always state "RN's preferred" yet I really dont see it often enough.

Ill point out that the most troubling thing in this thread

Is when everyone is talking about how to save hospitals money/cut cost not a single person has mentioned...

Improve the quality of healthcare.

With pay for performance (whether you're for it or against it I care not) this seems to be a hot topic in healthcare news. Reduce waste, reduce readmission rates, get people healthier and out of the hospital faster so you can get someone else in that bed.

Ill also recommend that people who are in charge of financial matters, should be mandatory to have legitimate financial training. Imagine hiring an accountant for your printing company who has no actual accounting experience only printing experience. That seems to be a frequent problem in nursing. While well intentioned, its kind of scary as well...

Specializes in MICU, SICU, CICU.
In what way was my question insulting and inappropriate? Here it is again for your reference:

When hospitals look to cut costs -- as many of them have in the last decade -- nurses are the hardest hit. How has your employer dealt with staffing costs? How has it impacted you?

It is inappropriate and insulting that you have not provided an explanation of your motivation for asking these questions.

Is it to increase profits for your shareholders?

Specializes in Anesthesia, ICU, PCU.

I'm not fully brought into the fold of my facility's methods of budgeting and cost-cutting, as I am a staff nurse (not an administrator). However I have been lectured by my own nurse manager - who herself has a direct relationship with administration - about how "costly" our unit is. One way we fixed our "cost" was to staff the unit one nurse short on more shifts going forward, therefore pushing half of the RNs on our floor over the normal ratio. My manager rationalized this by saying "this is the only way we can keep all of our staff" or as we heard it "this is the only way we won't fire anybody." Well what ended up happening is too many people were forced to work too hard, neglect their patients, become demoralized, and quit. Well what do you know they caused exactly what they stated they were trying to prevent. And you know what else.. we're still getting staffed short. But hey our CEO still makes $400,000 something a year so we must be doing something right.

Specializes in MICU, SICU, CICU.
We don't always recommend cutting costs -- sometimes we recommend raising shift differentials or even base wages to align with market conditions.

Who is "we"?

Out of curiosity, why arent more ex nurse managers/leaders healthcare consultants?

This is something ive frequently wondered. Especially since A great deal of positions for "consultants" always state "RN's preferred" yet I really dont see it often enough.

Good question -- all I can say is, the firm that I work for does, in fact, hire health care professionals - nurses, pharmacists, and physicians.

Who is "we"?

Consulting firm

It is inappropriate and insulting that you have not provided an explanation of your motivation for asking these questions.

Is it to increase profits for your shareholders?

I'm not sure I understand the antipathy -- if I've offended you, I apologize -- that certainly was not my intention. An easy solution to this would be to ignore my posts.

Specializes in MICU, SICU, CICU.
It is inappropriate and insulting that you have not provided an explanation of your motivation for asking these questions.

Is it to increase profits for your shareholders?

No antipathy yet. Perhaps you could answer the question instead of dancing around it with half hearted apologies.

Specializes in Emergency.

Ahhh consulting. If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Specializes in OB.

Perhaps one measure might be to "consult" with the staff directly involved before paying large sums to an outside entity. Too often cost cutting measures are imposed based on recommendations from those who have no direct connection to the impact of those decisions.

Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.
Perhaps one measure might be to "consult" with the staff directly involved before paying large sums to an outside entity. Too often cost cutting measures are imposed based on recommendations from those who have no direct connection to the impact of those decisions.

Sometimes having a fresh pair of eyes from the outside looking in can be a good thing. They don't have the blinders on, or the hate glazed over them. My dad is an outside consultant. Not like this hack though. The first thing he does when he gets to a new job is sits down with the employees, the grunts. And asks them what would make their job easier/better and how they would do things. He then takes it back to the execs and says this is what we need to do. Might be why he has never had to look for an ounce of work in his life, the companies keep coming to him.

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