Introduction
Budgeting coordinates the financial and non-financial planning necessary for a company to achieve its goals and objectives. The process of budgeting in nursing, which ultimately results in an official budget, creates an opportunity for multiple management levels for the hospital administrators to think through, write, and commit to the organization’s objectives for the future (Park & Kim, 2017). The process of budgeting for nursing care is affected by several different aspects. The variables could be internal, meaning they are forces within the business, or they could be external, meaning they are forces that influence the organization’s marketplace. This essay will examine different external and internal forces that affect the development of the nursing budget, such as healthcare reforms and consumer groups.
The Development of the Nursing Budget
Internal elements such as the competence of the human resource, the availability of financial resources, the management component, and the participation of the nursing staff and the healthcare stakeholders are examples of things that can affect the nursing budgeting process. An efficient nursing budgeting process is greatly influenced by the expertise possessed by the available human resources. For a healthcare organization to efficiently carry out its operations, the business needs to make certain that it possesses human resources who are competent, skilled, and knowledgeable in the operational processes and procedures of budgeting (Park & Kim, 2017). Most firms with an incompetent workforce and then place that incompetent workforce in positions of responsibility within the budgetary process end up performing poorly. Accurate assessments of the most effective ways to attain goals and objectives depend on the degree to which these goals were sincere when they were first formulated.
The accessibility of financial resources is another internal factor affecting the formulation of the nursing budget. It is one of the most important factors determining how successfully the nursing budgeting procedure is carried out. For the healthcare organization to obtain an appropriate budget, it is necessary to ensure that it has sufficient access to financial resources. This will ensure that the project and the activities it intends to carry out have sufficient funding (Park & Kim, 2017). The team in charge of developing the budget ought to allot sufficient finances, resources, and other structures that support the operational budget implementation of the healthcare projects and other nursing goals. Developing a budget for the nursing business typically involves collaboration between the finance department and other departments.
External factors affecting nursing budgeting are donor policies, economic conditions, and technological advancements. To begin, the policies of donors have a significant impact on the nursing budget. Donor assistance accounts for a significant portion of public and healthcare budgets in nations with high levels of donor financing. Donor organizations can influence recipient healthcare institutions’ nursing budget transparency and accountability in various ways (Park & Kim, 2017). In addition to influencing the capacity and dedication of the healthcare organization, the donor can also guarantee that finances are more open and accessible. Additionally, the donor can alter their behavior in terms of openness and responsibility.
The current economic condition of a country is yet another external issue that plays a role in the nursing budgeting process. A country’s economic climate can cause fluctuations in a budget, which is especially likely to occur when a healthcare organization receives all or part of its funding for healthcare from another nation (Park & Kim, 2017). Suppose the currency of the country receiving the funds is stronger than that of the country donating the funds. In that case, the inflation rates will rise, which will impact the prices of healthcare, such as by driving up salaries and wages. This results in a significant budget discrepancy for the health-related project, which has a detrimental impact on the budgeting procedure for nursing.
The nursing budgeting process is directly influenced by the present healthcare and nursing trends. As was mentioned before, the field of nursing and healthcare is constantly undergoing shifts that make them more complicated. Modern healthcare and the nursing sector are also related to the development of new technologies; as a result, the nursing budgeting process also needs to evolve to keep up with these developments (Porter, 2021). The new healthcare law includes provisions that will increase the number of nurses available to meet the ever-increasing demand for medical treatment. On the other hand, these changes relate to the nursing practice, since, the more significant the number of health workers, the greater the industry will spend on the wages and salaries of that personnel.
Accreditation agencies also have an impact on the budgeting process for nursing. There has been widespread adoption of the accrediting system for nursing schools. Certifying distance learning, the Higher Learning Corporation, and even the Training Council are all activities carried out by several different accrediting institutions (Dobija et al., 2018). The nursing sector is primarily overseen by two different certifying organizations, who together are responsible for the accreditation process. The National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education are organizations that fall under this category.
Patients, their relatives, and members of the community are considered customers in nursing practice, however the exact composition of these groups can change. Patients and other organizations may incur significant costs for nursing services; hence, developing a financial plan is essential. Consumer groups express both their complaints and their approval when they see how the circumstances of the nursing budget affect the care alternatives available to them, which has an effect on the budgeting process for nurses.
Nursing education has an effect, as well, on the budgeting for nursing. Because of recent reforms made to the federal student loan programs, an increasing number of nursing students can now pursue their educations full-time (Lee et al., 2018). This indicates that the impending scarcity of nurses, which has the potential to compromise the quality of care provided to patients, will be mitigated. The budgeting for nursing is immediately affected by this change because students can now access and get larger amounts of a loan from the federal government.
The hospital organization’s culture affects the commitment made by the healthcare organization. The hospital organization’s natural culture offers expectations, an identity, and rules that are beneficial to the organization in achieving its objectives (Lee et al., 2018). Culture always enables low expenses, high patience, more significant margins, and other desirable results for the hospital. Other valuable outcomes are also facilitated by culture. The fact that this aspect needs to be taken into account during the nursing budgeting process significantly impacts that aspect of the process. Lastly, the nursing budgeting process is influenced by the culture of the nursing organization.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the budgeting process for nursing care is additionally impacted by many other elements. These characteristics’ favorable impact has helped manage, develop, and execute budgets. The extent to which these elements have a negative impact contributes to the failure of the budgeting process. To get a favorable impact from these aspects, it is vital to ensure that the hospital organization include strategic leaders at appropriate levels. These leaders should be able to ensure that the budgeting process is carried out according to the healthcare organization’s purpose, vision, and objectives in question.
References
Dobija, D., GĂłrska, A. M., & Pikos, A. (2018). The impact of accreditation agencies and other powerful stakeholders on the performance measurement in Polish universities. Baltic Journal of Management, 14(1), 1746-5265.
Lee, M., Im, S., Byun, E. K., & Chung, E. (2018). Influence of nursing organization culture on resilience in new nurses. Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research, 24(2), 137-146.
Park, H. Y., & Kim, J. S. (2017). Factors influencing disaster nursing core competencies of emergency nurses. Applied Nursing Research, 37, 1-5.
Porter, K. Y. (2021). Clinical Judgment. In B. Cherry & S. R. Jacob (Eds.), Contemporary Nursing E-Book: Issues, Trends, & Management (8th ed, p. 428). Elsevier