Finances, Financial Practices and Financial Integrity

In order for staff to have the understanding of finance and its impact in an organization, top down information sharing and modeling is essential. This starts with the hospital administration instilling financial awareness and accountability led by the organization administration and the chief nursing officer-leading the staff to observe a broader perspective of the organization (Muller &Karsten, 2012).This approach gives the staff knowledge to help take some of the emotion out of the budget process (Muller &Karsten, 2012). Educating staff about the healthcare finance can help them to understand decisions that are made within the organization related to finance and can foster ideas from frontline staff to contribute ideas for department or even organizational cost savings.

The Institute of Medicine and the American Nurses Association also have identified the need for nurses and other healthcare providers to engage in healthcare finance.  The 2010 IOM report recommended that nurses take responsibility in becoming active participants in shaping healthcare and managing healthcare resources(Institute of Medicine, 2010). According to theAmerican Nurse’s Associations’ (ANA) (2010) standard of “resource utilization,” all nurses need to identify the equipment and supplies that are essentialto patient care- then identifying potential for harm, the complexity of the task, and the desired outcome when evaluating allocation of resources. Additionally, to advocate for the resources needed to staff and operate their units, nurses need to become more financially minded and increase their understanding of healthcare costs(Sherman, 2012).This can only be accomplishedif nurses understand the financial priorities behind healthcare business decisions (Muller &Karsten, 2012). Nursing has become more complex and the role of finance now extends into their jobs duties. Nurses and nursing leaders are now faced with navigating the landscape of budgets, variances, and staffing ratios, but are they equipped to do so?