Instructions

Complete media activity, Applying Economic Decision Making to HealthLinks to an external site. | TranscriptLinks to an external site., and make a decision based on the information from Vila Health, and from interviews with various at the hospital. Use this information to write a 250-300 word summary in which you:

• Identify the departments that have the largest nursing shortages.
• Analyze the obstacles to recruiting nurses for the identified department.

Note: If sources are used, you must cite them using Strayer Writing Standards (SWS)

Part of any health administrator's job is to make decisions about allocation of resources specifically in terms of Supply and demand to meet patients’ healthcare needs. Such changes cannot be made lightly and whatever decision is made will have pros and cons . Leaders must be able to put together an implementation plan in which they identify and document the key steps involved in such a project. 

Vila Health is a medium-sized system of health operating facilities in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area. They have recently acquired two smaller systems: Delaware County Regional Health System, which consists of Independence Medical Center and Delaware County Hospital, and Red River Rural Health System, which consists of Valley City Hospital and several small clinics.

The leadership teams from all three organizations are now focused on providing a smooth transition for both staff and patients. As part of the transition, they need an implementation plan for allocation of resources to effectively address ongoing staffing shortages.

The transition team has tasked you with researching staffing shortages, using economic principles and tools to create an implementation plan to balance supply, demand, and cost for healthcare services.

Staff Interviews

Albert Lynton
Operations Manager, Operations

What are the issues that most concern you about the current staffing shortages for nurses across the organization and allocation of resources to address the challenges that we are facing?

Albert:
"The entire healthcare organization is impacted by staffing shortages and particularly the nursing shortage crisis. Because we offer a number of services across our facilities and departments, operations play a key role as part of the project to explore where the resources are needed the most and in the areas of high demand for patient services."

What departments do you think are most impacted by the nursing shortages and where can we best allocate the resources to meet the needs of the organization?

Albert:
"The biggest worry is that we must ask departmental managers to provide the data on staff shortages and we may not have the budget to fill the needed positions in all departments, so we must prioritize the most needed areas like the emergency care department as we explore solutions.

We currently have 25% less registered nurses than needed to meet patient demand and many of our emergency department nurses are working double shifts. This has led to some resignations due to nurse burnout and we continue to see more nurses resigning which is not impacting our capability to provide patient care but increases the risk for affecting patient safety.

Our Pediatric services are another major concern because we have a limited number of pediatric specialists and nurses, and although we have tried different recruiting strategies, human resources is not receiving very many inquiries about these positions."

Paul Hartwell
Chief Nursing Officer

What are the issues that most concern you about our organizational expansion and the nursing shortage that we are facing?

Paul:
"The main concern that I see is future projections for nursing shortages and the fact that we are not only facing budget shortfalls, but even with sign on bonuses and other perks, we still cannot recruit and retain the nurses needed to meet patient demands. This is leading to burnout and work overload for our nurses and can potentially impact patient safety."

What are your thoughts about hiring immigrant nurses and providing relocation expenses for them versus hiring travel nurses that is more expensive due to higher compensation?

Paul:
"Other healthcare organizations are using this approach for supply and demand and is has been reported to reduce the cost curve for providing healthcare services. This is an area that we need to explore, and our nursing leaders should be part of the process to explore this option.

If this approach is used to address the nursing shortage, training the nurses will require a training plan that outlines specific goals and then, we must also address state licensure requirements for the nurses." "

Alex Moody
Human Resources Manager, Human Resources

As you know, we are exploring ways to address the nursing shortage that we are facing and considering hiring immigrant nurses. What concerns your department most about this consideration and how can your team support us?

Alex:
"My greatest concern is that the biggest problems and greatest needs need to be prioritized. From my perspective that points to two things – getting all Vila Health partners on board including the board of directors to approve the plan to address the nursing shortage and to ensure that our current nurses and other staff are trained to train the new immigrant nurses.

The other thing that needs to be addressed is making sure that we effectively train the new nurses and that we have a support system in place for them. State licensure requirements must also be met. Just to mention, some hospitals are partnering with nursing school programs and providing clinical rotations and supervising nursing students to perform some functions to assist RN's, so this is another opportunity to explore as well."

What do you anticipate the current staff being most concerned about as we recruit a large number of immigrant nurses to work in the departments with the highest demand for medical care?

Alex:
"Oh, that's easy… The number one concern will be effective training and how the training will roll out and who will oversee the training. Another major concern will be ensuring that all the new hires meet the nursing licensure requirements in our state. That can be accomplished by our human resource department though." "