National training for a new nurse staffing resource management methodology

The Veterans Affairs (VA) nursing services has implemented a new resource management methodology for determining nurse staffing based on the expert judgment of panels of nurses. This article describes how two educators worked with a development task force to design and implement a national education program to prepare 172 individual health care facility coordinators to implement the methodology. The education program was based on a systems approach emphasizing data collection and analysis, consensus building and expert decision-making. Two pilot programs were conducted and recommendations resulted in a series of 1 1/2-day training sessions conducted across the United States.