Agency Nurse Staffing Plan

The current budget in the department allows for four RN, three LVN’s, and two CNA’s. The current staffing plan costs the department roughly $2160/per twelve hour shift. Adjusting for an employee who is going to be on a leave of absence can be difficult to manage. The nurse manager has approximately eighteen shifts she needs to ensure coverage. One option to fill the vacancies for the 6 week absence of one of the RN’s would be using an agency nurse or per diem. I believe agency nurses are an excellent way to provide coverage. Speaking from experience of working as an agency nurse you do not get caught up in all the politics of the organization. You are able to sign up for many different places and clinical settings and get to meet many different types of work teams (Yoder-Wise, 2015). Some disadvantages of utilizing per diem staff are limitations on the facilities daily flow and nurses who are expected to work with very little orientation. As nurse manager you utilizing agency nurse will fill your vacancy and cost your department approximately $1950 over the six week period, however you might have to do extra orientation in order …show more content…
Working short staff can affect patient safety and the safety of your nurses. Through research working with inadequate staffing levels can increase medical and medication errors, Increase patient complications, Decrease patient satisfaction, Increase nurse burnout, and increase fatigue (Yoder-Wise, 2015). There are many factors that affect your patient variables, which include the number of patients each nurse has, the range of conditions of your assigned patients, treatments required, and family situation and needs (Yoder-Wise, 2015). Health of patients and hospital census are unpredictable and as nurse manger you have to be ready for any obstacles that arise. I believe limiting obstacles proactively will make for a much better moral and the work environment for your