Budget, Staffing, And Patient Outcomes

The Nurse Manager, Budget, Staffing, and Patient Outcomes.
This paper discusses the many roles played by the Nurse managers in helping to run and organize their units. This paper also discusses how budgets are created, the relationship between budget and nurse staffing, it also explores the relationship between nurse staffing and patient outcomes. Like the captain of a ship, nurse managers are critical in ensuring the smooth operations of their units. “Leadership demonstrated by the nurse manager directly impacts staff’s performance of patient care and therefore influence patient outcomes” (Witges & Scanlan, 2014).
“Considering the complexities of the current healthcare system, the role of the nurse manager is generally considered one of the

112). The nurse manager is person is not the person responsible for creating a budget. The accounting department creates our budget based on Retrospective Forecasting and Prospective Forecasting” (B.C., personal communication, July 17, 2017). According to Penner 2017, “Budget planners often use past performance as a guide for budget projection, a method known as retrospective forecasting”. “Another method of forecasting is prospective forecasting, based on the assumption that current information enables the prediction of future events” (Penner, 2017, p. 146). “Labor costs are often the largest part of health care budgets. Expenses for nursing personnel often make up the largest part of hospital budgets, and in some hospitals the largest part of the total budget” (Douglas, 2010). “The fiscal year for this organization runs from June-June, with personnel expense making up the bulk of the budget. Management are always in the know as to how, the unit is doing financially. Meetings are held quarterly and variances will have to be reported. Expenditure and revenue are monitored closely by management. Variances can either be a Favorable budget variance, or Unfavorable budget variance. When there is an unfavorable budget variance, efforts are made to correct the problem. The nurse manager will have to do a detailed investigation sometimes with the help from the accounting department to see what may be contributing to the unfavorable variance. When the source of the unfavorable variance is found, the nurse manager implements measures to control the variance” (B.C., personal communication, July 17, 2017). Penner, 2017 defines Variance “as the difference between the budgeted target and actual performance”. “Favorable budget variance is a desirable difference between budgeted and actual amounts. Unfavorable budget variance is an undesirable deference