Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to provide learners with the opportunity to gain financial management skills by calculating full-time equivalents for a nursing unit and analyzing a variance scenario.
Due Date: Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 4
Total Points Possible: 100
Requirements:
Answer the questions and complete the calculations required for the two sections of the assignment.
- Calculations of full-time equivalents (FTEs)
- Variance analysis
Submit your answers on a Word document,with the heading of Week 4Assignment. For the questions requiring a written response, please adhere to proper grammar and syntax, and provide references. For the questions requiring calculations, show all your work and follow the format that has been provided for the calculations in the lesson for Week 4.
Preparing the paper
Section One—Calculation of Full-Time Equivalents
Personnel Budget Case Study
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. Linda’s 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.
- 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 Study—briefly state the organization’s goals (customer-service orientation) for the coming year, trends, any changes in trends that you may anticipate—such 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.
- 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.
- 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%
- Assign staff by type and by shift.
Day Shift 50%
Night Shift 50%
- Convert staff positions to FTE positions.
Section Two—Variance 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 0 hours per care per patient
- BQo 340 visits
- APi $45.00
- AQi 6 hours per care per patient
- AQo 400 visits
- 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 thatmade the differences and why the variances occurred.
Solution:
Personnel Budget Case Study Section one
Question One
Linda, who has assumed a new assistant managerial role in 1 West requires a comprehensive background information concerning patients, nursing staff, and previous budget. According to Lopes, Almeida, and Almada-Lobo (2015), elaborate background information regarding a healthcare environment is critical in assessing an institution’s Full Time Equivalents, (FTEs). Besides, background information assists in ascertaining the staff data, skill mix data, employees’ average salary per category, while at the same time aiding in assigning shifts to employees. The primary objective of the healthcare institution is to ensure quality and accessible care is always provided through ensuring adequate staffs are hired with the required skill mix. Currently, with better background information compared to previous years, it is highly expected that the patient volume will significantly considerably.
Question Two
FTEs is calculated by dividing the total care hours by the total hours/year/employee
That is, (Total Care hours / total hours per employee)
Thus the FTEs for 1 West is;
96,360/2080 = 46.33 FTEs
- Productive FTEs required….Please click the icon below to purchase full solution at $10