Quantifying discontent in the nursing profession: a study of staff mobility in Victorian nursing homes

Two problems facing the Australian health system are discontent within the nursing profession and matching limited resources to a growing aged population. It is argued in this paper that the solutions to these two problems can only be evaluated by quantifying the scale of the problem. Three measures are used to demonstrate how to measure the size of the problem: participation rates, staff turnover rates and proportion of permanent/casual staff. These three measures are useful to monitor both at a systems level and at the level of individual health services. The discussion refers in particular to staffing in Victorian geriatric nursing homes.