Assignment 1: Understanding Business Principles

Practical Application of Business Principles Understanding business principles and how to apply them is important for the nursing leader to be better equipped to plan for budgeting, benchmarking, staffing, and overall business. Through the exploration of twenty-five scenarios, a greater understanding was developed for the practical application of several business principles through active discussion and text review. Knowledge enhancement in the practical application of business principles will improve both leadership and organizational success. Valuable Business Principal Insight Nurse leaders must have a solid understanding of budgeting. This knowledge allows them to allocate resources appropriately for their operations. Questions 8-12 and

The process involves several steps, including data collection, data comparison, and goal setting (Jones et al., 2019). Various tools are available to assist healthcare organizations and consumers in these comparisons. However, there are limitations to benchmarking such as once a goal is met, progress may stand still, and benchmarking only highlights numeric data for comparison, not the specific steps taken to achieve the results. Nurse leaders must have a solid understanding of staffing. Questions 5-7, 16, and 20 explore this topic, including how to staff to ensure patient safety, plan for full-time or part-time nurse positions, and differentiate between productive and non-productive hours. Effective staffing and scheduling are crucial to budget planning. Nursing positions are often part-time to provide flexibility for extra shifts without incurring overtime. Productive hours involve patient care, while non-productive hours include activities like meetings, education, paid time off, and sick time. Both types of hours are important in budget

Understanding ROI is vital for making informed business decisions, determining the profitability of an investment, and guiding strategic planning, as explored in questions 13-15. This knowledge helps nurse managers evaluate the ROI for new roles, such as patient care navigators, and make sound business and investment choices to ensure organizational profitability. Business Principal Application The opportunity to explore concepts related to budgeting, benchmarking, staffing, and business will be useful in my nurse leadership journey. I had the opportunity to meet with our Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and was able to gain valuable insight into these areas of leadership. I have a better understanding of budgeting variances and the importance of calculating and analyzing variances. Additionally, I learned about calculating nursing hours per patient day (NHPPD) and was able to have a thoughtful conversation with our medical surgical department manager, who has never used this. I shared insight with my colleagues to assist in their understanding of NHPPD and allow their ability to compare to other organizational medical surgical