Modeling the Benefits of Cross-Training to Address the Nursing Shortage
Jomon Aliyas Paul and Leo MacDonald International Journal of Production Economics Vol. 150, Issue 1 (April) 2014, pp. 83-95
The United States is facing a serious shortage of nurses who play invaluable roles in patient care delivery. This has led to patient safety concerns and affected hospital staffs’ ability to detect complications in patients, potentially leading to mortality increases. This problem is predicted to worsen as a result of both aging baby-boomers and aging nursing workforce. The implications are to direct health care issues and to health economics as well. This paper seeks to offer insight into strategies to help resolve this issue by evaluating the benefits of cross-training within the existing pool of nurses. Specifically, given uncertain demand, we determine the optimal allocation of both regular and cross-trained staff to minimize costs considering practical limitations, including constraints on total available resources, while maintaining minimum quality (worker heterogeneity) and patient service levels. Our models extend the literature on the effect of demand variability on expected shortage levels and optimal staff allocation decisions by capably handling various probability distributions as well as incorporating the impacts of the costs of cross-training and temporary staffing. We also develop optimization models for two department and multi-department problem scenarios, and demonstrate the benefits of cross-training via illustrative examples featuring emergency and surgical departments. Overview
8 | Outstanding Publication
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs