Case Study on Memorial Hospital
Introduction
In every orderly activity there must be a preliminary strategic planning and forecasting in order to determine a successful end result. This discussion focuses on a plan based on nurses staffing in Memorial Hospital a regional hospital serving western North Carolina. The idea in this discussion is to explain the alternative available to Darlene Fry (Director of Nursing) as she develops a nursing staffing plan for Memorial Hospital. We shall also focus on how each alternative plan meets the objective stated by the CEO.
The alternatives available for staffing plan are as follows:
To begin with is the use of demand and supply options in developing a reasonable staffing plan such as Hiring and firing or lay off of some nurses, overtime and under time, use of temporary nurses or subcontracting, use of vacations, cross training to allow assigning of nurses across different care areas as well as offering new services such as HMOs for purposes of preventive medical care to keep skilled nurses employed.
For Darlene to meet her three key objectives: minimizing costs, maximizing customer service and minimizing workforce fluctuations, there are some alternatives to choose from which would enable her to be able to develop a nurse staffing plan. These general staffing strategy alternatives are categorized into levels such as; chase, modified level or mixed.
Following some intellectual consultations affirmed that chase strategy doesn’t seem to be a desirable strategy based on both minimizing the work force fluctuations and maximizing customer service objectives. Furthermore the strategy has little advantage over a mixed strategy that can reduce the overstaffing/under staffing and hiring /layoff costs. While a modified level strategy simply refers to establishing an unchanging workforce level and using a combination of temp workers and overtime during peak periods and under time and vacations during slow periods.
We call it Modified since the use of temp workers is not level. This strategy would best meet the workforce fluctuation objective. In addition, a mixed strategy would use near level staffing with a minimal amount of hiring and layoff during the peak and slow seasons. This strategy would require the trade-offs between the level workforce objectives and the customer service and minimal cost objectives.
The alternative plan 1 meets the objectives of the CEO by maximizing the customer services and reduction of overstaffing or understaffing and hiring / layoff costs. On modified strategy which focuses on constant workforce level and using a combination of temp workers and over time during peak seasons has the best work force fluctuation objective which enables the minimization of the work force fluctuations.
While on mixed strategy level staffing with minimal amount of hiring and lay offs during high seasons and low seasons the strategy which requires trade-offs between the workforce objective and the customer service and minimal cost objectives seeks to consider the alternative of the underlying reasonable objectives such as maximizing of costs with in the customer service provision of the Hospital.
Therefore using full-time equivalent (FTE) nurse versus partial nurses the over time would be more appropriate when partial nurses are used. Interchangeability of nurses- the staffing plan would be more modularized by department without this assumption. While use of vacation periods as needed- loss of flexibility here would probably increase the requirements and the costs. This alternative can as well make the hospital balance its coordinated efforts in maximizing all the available alternative in making sure that the most appropriate one gets through with the plan at the final stage.
Reference:
Memorial HospitalCase¬_48888 case study attached document
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