Financial savvy: the value of business acumen in oncology nursing

Have you given serious thought to your individual ability to affect the high cost of health care? If so, you may have determined that the opportunity to have any meaningful effect on cost of services for patients with cancer is limited. You may believe that budgets are the responsibility of nursing leadership. Indeed, the development of the unit or department budget is an activity that many of us have no direct (or even indirect) role in completing. Once the budget is finalized, we are frequently given directives to control our costs and improve the financial bottom line for our employers. One could argue that this is a particularly difficult missive for oncology nurses with the soaring costs of chemotherapy and biotherapy drugs, the expenses incurred to provide supportive care needed by patients with cancer, and the need to provide services to the increasing number of cancer survivors.