A Primer on Finance

Nursing leadership skills have changed dramatically in a health care environment so different from years past. Nursing management skills are required at all levels…even at the bedside…as nurses have become coordinators of care. Financial issues have come to the forefront for health care organizations and nurses must be ever-conscious of fiscal realities. Additional skills are needed to justify staffing, ensure adequacy of supplies, and maintain quality in a time of fiscal restraint.  Unfortunately, most nurses—even many nurse managers and directors—have had little formal preparation for the financial aspects of the managerial role.

The budgeting process in a health care organization is not unlike a personal budget. Budgets help us to manage ongoing expenses, allow us to plan for what we can purchase, and provide a mechanism for saving.  Much in the same way our personal budgets allow us to implement a personal or family strategy, a departmental or organizational budget is consistent with the organization’s mission and allows it to achieve short and long term goals that are part of a strategic plan. By evaluating what we spend on a monthly basis, we and our families are able to evaluate our expenses and control excess spending. In exactly the same way, nurses who develop awareness of and insight into unit and department expenses can facilitate cost-consciousness throughout the organization.

I am constantly amazed at how little nurses know about how we get paid for what we do and how we run our organizations! In my opinion, it reveals a deficiency in our basic education.

The next several blogs will present a series on the financial aspects of care management. I hope they will provide an introduction to financial concepts and a basic understanding of how financial realities impact all of us.

Finance and Nursing - The Business of Caring

http://www.hfma.org/hfm/2006archives/month01/CoverStory0106.htm 

Long-term care, anyone?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_n9_v43/ai_7894365