Park General Hospital is a 100-bed primary care hospital in a growing suburban area. It is working to improve its cost efficiency in patient care. Patient care is provided over the course of three 8-hour shifts per day, resulting in 21 8-hour shifts per week that must be staffed. Full-time nursing staff work five 8- hour shifts per week (5 workdays in a week), with remaining shifts handled by part-time nursing staff. Maintaining a high level of care requires operating at fully-staffed capacity. Use the following information to forecast full-time nursing needs for next year." Two years ago Last year Currently Average number of patients per day 60 75 90 Average number of full- time nurses per shift 20 23 25 Patients per nurse 3.0 3.3. 3.6 "Adapted from G. Dessler. (2000). Human Resource Management 1. As the population around Park General grows, estimates suggest that by next year, the hospital will be operating at its maximum patient capacity. In its quest for enhanced efficiency, the hospital would like to retain its current staffing ratio throughout next year. Knowing this, estimate the average labor demand for any given week next year for full-time nurses. (Round your answer to the nearest whole person.). 2. What is Park General's current average labor supply of full-time nurses for any given week? 3. Last year, 2% of the full-time nursing staff retired. The retirements were planned allowing Park General to replace them with new employees so the hospital could operate fully-staffed at 25 nurses per shift. The Nursing Director expects that the retirement rate will increase such that 5% of next year's staff will need to be replaced throughout the year. Combining this information with the labor supply and demand values calculated in Questions 1 and 2, on the average, how many full- time nurses will need to be recruited throughout next year? (Round your answer to the nearest whole person.) 4. While recruiting new nurses is one option to address the forecasted shortage, what other options may be available to the hospital for meeting the anticipated staffing needs?