Linda Watson has recently accepted a position as the assistant administrator for the department of nursing at St. Joseph Hospital. There have been both personnel and financial problems at St. Joseph Hospital, and recently, the Catholic Healthcare System purchased the hospital. Like Linda, all of the management staff is new. Lindas first priority is to assist the nurse managers in preparing their cost centers personnel budgets for the coming fiscal year. She has decided to begin with the nurse manager on 1 West, a step-down nursing unit. Linda wants to do extensive data collection and create a solid base for making projections.

1. Suggest all the information Linda needs to collect to prepare a budget for 1 West; be sure to include background data on the unit itself as it relates to previous budgets, nursing staff, and the organization. In other words, summarize your approach to this Case Studybriefly state the organizations goals (customer-service orientation) for the coming year, trends, any changes in trends that you may anticipatesuch as growth in the patient population and the types of data that need to be collected in order to make decisions about staffing levels and ratios.

2. Linda has collected the following information, in addition to what was asked in question number one

Patient Data:

Average Daily Census 30

Unit Capacity 32

Average HPPD 8.8

Total Care Hours 96,360

Staff Data:

Productive hours/employee/year 1,780

Nonproductive hours/employee/year 300

Total Hours/employee/year 2,080

Skill Mix:

RNs 80%

LVNs 10%

Nurse aides 10%

Average Salary per Employee Category:

RN $40.00/hour

LVN $22.00/hour

Nurses Aide $14.00/hour

Calculate the number of productive full-time equivalents (FTEs) that would be needed. Show your calculations.

3. How many RNs, LVNs, and nurses aides will be needed to staff this unit, assuming staff will be working 12-hour shifts? In other words, how many person-shifts will be required during a 24-hour period?

Day Shift 50%

Night Shift 50%

4. Assign staff by type and by shift.

Day Shift 50%

Night Shift 50%

5. Convert staff positions to FTE positions.

Section TwoVariance Analysis

Variance Analysis Case Study

During the month of February, an outpatient surgery clinic has incurred a significant unfavorable variance. The director of the clinic is quite concerned, as this has never occurred before. The director gathers information on total nursing care hours, average hourly rate of the employees, and total patient visits to determine what caused the variance. In addition, the director receives the patient acuity levels for the month of February.

BPi $40.00

BQi 5.0 hours per care per patient

BQo 340 visits

APi $45.00

AQi 5.6 hours per care per patient

AQo 400 visits

1. Compare the original budget to the flexible budget and calculate the volume variance. Compare the flexible budget to the actual budget and determine the price and quantity variances. Work through the entire analysis process as presented in your lesson for Week 4, and remember to show your calculations.

What factors caused the difference in the variances? Analyze all the factors that made the differences and why the variances occurred.