Nursing: the hospital's competitive edge

The health care marketplace is becoming increasingly competitive. The hospital has a built-in marketing force with the nursing department, because nurses are in constant, direct contact with the customer. Nursing must identify the case mix profile of the community and focus the hospital product lines to meet community needs. The nursing department should decentralize, change, measure, and innovate the staff mix needed to operationalize these product lines. The development of nursing practice standards for the case mix will help to identify the staff mix needed and create systems to efficiently manage the product lines. Nursing management must become aware of cross-subsidization and downward skill substitution of nursing personnel. Nursing information systems must generate quality reports that invoke cost consciousness on the part of nursing staff. Quality assurance programs must become unit based and complete with frequent audits to correlate length of stay with nursing quality. Correlations must be determined between nursing productivity and case mix to determine the hospital's niche in the marketplace. The transformation of health care into a competitive business industry has created many opportunities for nursing. The health care industry's incentives for efficiency along with the decreasing demand for inpatient hospital services will be the forces driving health care toward a competitive marketplace. The hospital's nursing department should be strategically positioned to become accountable for increasing market share and enhancing quality patient outcomes. The focus has shifted from the theoretical to the tactical, which is a step in the right direction, particularly for nursing. Nursing, if strategically positioned, will not only thrive but will also excel in this chaotic environment by capturing the opportunities and being innovative.