Hospital Budgeting Process

Introduction Nurse managers play an important role for evaluation and maintaining the unit's allotted yearly budget. According to Yoder-Wise (2014), the budget process begins with information gathering. The second step of the process involves developing the unit budget, which is then followed by setting a cash budget (Yoder-Wise, 2014). The last step of the process involves continuously reviewing and editing the set budget, and making changes accordingly (Yoder-Wise, 2014). Furthermore, variance analysis can assist a nurse manager in figuring out which categories spent more money than previously budgeted, and which ones did not require all funds that were set aside (Yoder-Wise, 2014). Some unforeseen costs have arose on the cardiac unit.

Because the unit is only short $202.00, the most logical deferment is the medicine subscription that was requested by the nursing staff. Not to mention, the addition of smart IV pumps and soap dispensers will provide the most benefit to the unit and positive patient outcomes. Furthermore, proper hand washing techniques have shown to decrease the spread of infection in hospitals. According to Larson et al. (2007), “Hospitals with hand hygiene compliance of 59% or more had lower vancomycin-resistant enterococci rates,” (p. 112). Hopefully, with the implementation of soap dispensers, the rising rates of infection within this particular unit will go down. The budget allows for the cost of installing all of the equipment this year, with the help of the company providing the supplies for the remainder of the fiscal year. Next year, the budget will have to take into account for the cost of 11 months worth of supplies. As far as the addition of smart IV pumps on to the unit, Dulak (2005) mentioned that “35%-60% of the 770,000 ADEs (adverse drug events) that occur each year,” are related to IV infusions (p. 38). The smart IV pumps will decrease the amount of adverse drug events because they “can be programmed to calculate drug doses and medication infusion rates, as well as determine the volume and duration of an infusion,” (Yoder-Wise, 2014, p.