The human resource role in addressing the nursing shortage

A new initiative on the part of hospital management is needed to involve itself and the HRD more actively in addressing the nursing shortage. Hospital management can provide organizational support, the HRD the needed leadership, and financial managers the measuring tools to adopt a retention posture or balanced solution approach. Ultimately, hospital management wants to know how increased expenditures on human resources, and specifically nurses, affect the bottom line. However, two points need to be mentioned. First, not all steps taken by the HRD will require a dollar investment (for example, improved communication), but they will need the attention and support of hospital management. Secondly, if hospital management is waiting for an exact, accounting-supported cost-benefit analysis that justifies additional expenditures on nurses, then the effort will probably never be made. It is difficult to show a cause-and-effect relationship between discretionary expenditures (such as research and development, advertising, employee training programs) and the bottom line.