In the healthcare environment the requirement for a more sophisticated and cohesive approach to planning is increasing all the time with the need to be confident we can deliver high quality healthcare to our patients, in both a timely and affordable fashion.
One of the key components of the planning process relates to the staffing resources needed to deliver the patient care that is planned. Historically in many hospitals there has not always been a clear link between the two, either at annual planning or operational level, resulting in inaccurate budgets or budget overruns, too many or too few staff and poor or limited ability to plan leave.
The Nursing Management is reliant on good annual forecast planning by the organisation to be able to plan and manage their nursing resources to align with patient demand.
Based on the agreed annual patient demand forecast Nursing Management can quantify how much resource is required to deliver that plan. In nursing this means how many nurse, by location, by type, by month. By following this process the organisation is planning and budgeting the nursing resources required to deliver nursing care based on the forecast volumes of patients and expected care requirements or acuity of those patients.
Detailed bed and roster plans produced throughout the year support Nursing Managers to manage their service or hospital, knowing they are rostering and planning appropriate staffing numbers and skill mix, based on the expected patient volume and care requirements. Rostering of staff can be matched to weekday and seasonal occupancy patterns, holiday periods and managers can confidently maximise leave planning.
The advantages of good nursing management are both direct and indirect.
Leigh Singers Clinical Advisor, Emendo