Exam 16: Staffing and Scheduling

In evaluating mortality rates,the head nurse on the cardiac unit is surprised to find that they are higher on the weekend than on weekdays.In exploring the reasons for this apparent anomaly,the head nurse focuses on:

To reduce reliance on overtime hours,an organization develops a strategy for floating nurses during staff shortages.To maximize patient safety and reduce costs,the health care organization:

In a job interview for a staff position,which of the following indicates your knowledge of patient safety?

Scheduling is a function of implementing the staffing plan by assigning unit personnel to work specific hours and specific days of the week.To retain nursing staff,the nurse manager must schedule:

In the past year,you have noticed an increase in patient falls on your unit.In reading studies related to staffing and patient outcomes,you realize that you will need to plan for:

A nurse manager must consider a number of external variables when preparing the personnel budget and projecting the unit's staffing needs.An external consideration is:

To project staffing needs and to avoid understaffing,it is important that nurse managers consider which of the following?

To maintain patient safety,studies suggest that scheduling should avoid which of the following?

A particular classification system assigns revenue according to the functional capacity of patients and the progression of patients during their stay in rehabilitation units.More independent patient activities such as prompted voiding require higher staff utilization than do dependent activities but do not result in increased staff resources.This is an example of:

The difference between staffing and scheduling is that staffing:

Eschiti and Hamilton (2011)learned that support services and numbers of nonnurse staff are greatly diminished on off-peak shifts leading to increased mortality rates.Which of the following factors influence the risk to patients in off-peak times (weekends and evenings and night shifts)? (Select all that apply.)

In reviewing the job description of a nurse manager,the staff members become aware that a nurse manager's role is complex.Which of the following duties are required of a nurse manager? (Select all that apply.)

A nurse manager uses many sources of data when planning the unit's workload for the year.Which of the following data must be considered in the planning?

A busy neurologic intensive care unit and a step-down unit are most likely to use which patient classification system?

An important aspect of managing the costs on a unit is to plan accurately for staffing needs.Nurse managers use staffing plans to:

What does a nurse staffing plan take into account?

Your health care organization has a decentralized system for scheduling.As part of this process,after you have developed a draft schedule,you may need to:

The growth in evidence on nursing-sensitive indicators has been accompanied by significant controversy regarding the level of nurse staffing required for various groups of patients,primarily in acute-care hospitals.Two major approaches to sufficient staffing have been put forward in Canada.These are? (Select all that apply.)

Patient classification systems have been developed in an effort to give nurse managers the tools and language to describe the acuity of patients."Sicker" patients receive higher classification scores,indicating that more nursing resources are required to provide patient care.Which of the following describes a factor evaluation system?

A small rural hospital has been designated as a critical access hospital.It has 40 beds and an average occupancy rate of 34 beds.To prepare the staffing,the chief nursing officer computes the occupancy as being;