Inpatient Considerations
To date, most of the data related to staffing in the inpatient setting have been more general with little addressing oncology unit needs.
Gullatte’s text Nursing Management: Principles and Practice (2011) includes two chapters that may be helpful when looking at inpatient nurse staffing.
- The Patient Acuity and Classification Systems chapter (Eversole, Barton & Wood, 2011) provides information related to the options and benefits of these types of systems. This chapter addresses:
- Types of classification systems
- Potential uses and benefits
- Implications for nursing practice
- Considerations when choosing a system
- Examples of patient acuity software
The Flexible Budgets and Staffing Guidelines chapter (Edens & Gullate, 2011) address staffing metrics, flexible budgeting, and methods to determine realistic staffing to allow optimal patient outcomes and efficiency. Two aspects of staffing that need to be addressed are:
- Core staffing, which looks at average unit workload (census/volume) trends, available staff skill sets and core staffing plans.
- Adjusted daily staffing which varies based upon current workload
Examples of resources to determine each of these aspects are provided.
Cohen (2010) provides a start to finish discussion of what goes into determining and managing staffing needs in her article titled “How many nurses does your hospital need?”.
Subscription based resources are also available to help with inpatient staffing planning, such as The Nursing Executive Center of The Advisory Board Company which offers toolkits for staffing.
References:
Cohen, J.D. (2010, June). How many nurses does your hospital need? Nursing Management, 41(6):20-5.
Edens, P.S., & Gullatte, M.M. (2011). Flexible budgets and staffing guidelines. In M.M. Gullatte (Ed.), Nursing management: principles and practice (2nd ed., pp. 157–178). Pittsburgh, PA: Oncology Nursing Society.
Eversole, D.R., Barton, N.S & Wood, H. M. Patient acuity and classification systems. In M.M. Gullatte (Ed.), Nursing management: principles and practice (2nd ed., pp. 143–156). Pittsburgh, PA: Oncology Nursing Society.