In this study we mapped out that route, determined the length of time staff spend attending to the patient at each step and what that translates into with regards to personnel costs.
The problems entailed operational, tactical, and strategic management issues: optimizing working processes on pediatric wards, predicting the consequences of reducing length of stay on nursing staff required on a cardiology ward, and calculating the nursing staff consequences of merging two internal medicine wards.
The former is evident when considering the variation in unit costs, which is explained by differences in tariffs and other factors, including the average length of stay and the staff time involved; thus, the organisation and delivery of local healthcare resources impact on the magnitude of the incremental cost of adopting BUCCOLAM.
It is possible that, because of longer length of stay, the rehabilitation staff input reduces as the complexity of needs for rehabilitation decreases, and becomes limited to discharge planning by the end of the episode.
One could also measure staff satisfaction, length of stay, or in-hospital mortality.
Because of the shorter length of stay in Unit B, staff typically remain actively engaged in delivering therapy interventions and proactive discharge planning – right up to the point of discharge.
The special needs and vulnerability of hospitalized elders with CI lead to more demands on nursing staff, prolonged length of stay, increased risk of post-discharge institutionalization, and higher health care costs (Lyketsos et al 2000; Marcantonio et al 2000; McCusker et al 2003; Bynum et al 2004) (see Table 1).
The reason for admission, severity of illness, surgical/diagnostic procedures, resource consumption, ICU/hospital length of stay, outcome and ICU staffing structure were documented.
By documenting employer and employee experiences, it will become easier to recognize what is working (email responsiveness guidelines) and what might need to be changed (length and structure of staff meetings).
