Laura E. Noble
Manager, Resource Center, HFMA
Health Affairs published a new study this week that piqued media interest: “Nursing Staffing in Hospitals: Is There a Business Case for Quality?” The study examines the financial implications of increasing nursing hours to improve patient care quality. Researchers estimated that hospitals could improve care and save some money by hiring more RNs while keeping the total number of nursing hours the same (since the costs of changing the RN/LPN mix are relatively low). Options to raise the total number of nursing hours or to increase both the proportion of RNs and total hours would lead to even better patient care, but the increased labor costs would outstrip associated savings by approximately 1.5 percent of average annual hospital expenditures.
Studies like this tend to strike a deep chord among people outside the finance community, and it’s rarely positive. For example, a Health Affairs reader posted this comment in response to the study: “Minimum [nursing] ratios save lives. Patients deserve no less. The hospital industry needs to recognize the facts and stop fighting minimum ratios. That looks very bad, and that is a bad case for business.”
