Association between patient classification systems and nurse staffing costs in intensive care units: An exploratory study

Nurse staffing costs represent approximately 60% of total intensive care unit costs. In order to analyse resource allocation in intensive care, we examined the association between nurse staffing costs and two patient classification systems: the nursing activities score (NAS) and nine equivalents of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Intensive & critical care nursing 2018-04, Vol.45, p.78-84
Main Authors: Stafseth, Siv K., Tønnessen, Tor Inge, Fagerström, Lisbeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Budgets
Classification
Cost analysis
Costs and Cost Analysis
Critical care
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Hospital costs
Humans
Intensive care
Intensive care units
Intensive Care Units - economics
Intensive Care Units - statistics & numerical data
Male
Middle Aged
NAS
NEMS
Nine equivalents of nursing manpower use score
Norway
Nurses - economics
Nurses - statistics & numerical data
Nursing
Nursing activities score
Nursing staff
Patients
Personnel Staffing and Scheduling - economics
Resource allocation
Retrospective Studies
Staffing
Workforce
Workforce planning
Workload
Workloads
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Summary:Nurse staffing costs represent approximately 60% of total intensive care unit costs. In order to analyse resource allocation in intensive care, we examined the association between nurse staffing costs and two patient classification systems: the nursing activities score (NAS) and nine equivalents of nursing manpower use score (NEMS). A retrospective descriptive correlational analysis of nurse staffing costs and data of 6390 patients extracted from a data warehouse. Three intensive care units in a university hospital and one in a regional hospital in Norway. Nurse staffing costs, NAS and NEMS. For merged data from all units, the NAS was more strongly correlated with monthly nurse staffing costs than was the NEMS. On separate analyses of each ICU, correlations were present for the NAS on basic costs and external overtime costs but were not significant. The annual mean nurse staffing cost for 1% of NAS was 20.9–23.1 euros in the units, which was comparable to 53.3–81.5 euros for 1 NEMS point. A significant association was found between monthly costs, NAS, and NEMS. Cost of care should be based on individual patients’ nursing care needs. The NAS makes nurses’ workload visible and may be a helpful classification system in future planning and budgeting of intensive care resources.
ISSN:0964-3397
1532-4036
DOI:10.1016/j.iccn.2018.01.007