Question

During the budget preparation process for the upcoming fiscal year, the healthcare system leadership mandated 5% cost reductions from the previous fiscal year budget. Labor costs must be evaluated thoroughly for potential cost savings. You strongly feel eliminating nursing positions is not appropriate in this budget reduction initiative.

Discuss at least 3 factors you can use to justify the current nurse staffing as the most appropriate to ensure cost effective, high-quality care for patients?

List several ways to meet the budget reduction mandate without cutting nursing staff?

Discuss at least 3 characteristics an emotional intelligent leader would use in dealing with this scenario.

Answer 1

Some of the factors which can justify the current nursing staffing as the most appropriate to ensure cost effective are

• The knowledge and skills in handling the critically ill patients and reducing the number of infection rate as a whole
• The inflow of the patient being met with the right ratio of nurses ,any decrease in the nurses rate can affect the patient care due to shortage and lead to physical and emotional stress to the nurses in working hours
• The improvement in the quality of care within minimal resources and the financial benefits for the organization out of it

Some of the ways to reduce budget without cutting nursing staff are

• Make sure the development of the organisation in the part of interior and exterior modifications, expansion of the buildings, units,wards, etc., can be delayed until financial stability occurs
• Buying of new equipments, devices has to be bought only when it can improve quality and be beneficial to get monetary gains without ruining the current financial status of the organization
• Increment to be based purely on the quality services provided by the staff
• The length of the hospitalization greatly affects the budget, so planning has to be made to reduce the number of hospital stay.

The most important characteristics of an emotional intelligent leader are

• Good and high level communication skill in convincing the superiors and meeting the needs of the low level staffs
• Always thinking from the place of a person who is in necessity, this can create a good professional relationship between the stafffs
• Being aware of self can enable to make decisions without any bias or confusion.