Nurses on a unit met with the nurse manager as part of participatory budgeting.
They ask, What exactly is the difference between fixed and variable costs? Understanding this will help us better understand the budgeting process. The manager provides a definition and asks the staff to list types of direct and indirect cost. Which example would indicate a need for further teaching?
a. Fixed costs would include accreditation fees.
b. Fixed cost would include the cost for the automated medication-dispensing system.
c. Variable cost would include the nurse manager's salary.
d. Variable cost would include the salary expense for registered nurses.
A nurse has recently been appointed to the position of nurse manager. To become successful in managing the unit's budget, the new nurse manager should: (Select all that apply.)
a. read the financial policy manual to learn more about the organization's budgeting process.
b. allow the nursing administration office to manage the unit's budget until he or she is able to complete an online financial management course.
c. communicate regularly with a person in the hospital's finance office about interpreting budget reports.
d. pay attention to only the bottom line numbers in budget reports rather than trying to understand each line in these reports.
e. discuss the process of developing budgets with other members of the management team.
A nurse manager has calculated that providing 75 hours of direct nursing care per day requires that 120 hours must actually be worked by nursing staff. The manager is involved in: (Select all that apply.)
a. developing the capital budget.
b. applying productivity metric.
c. monitoring the labor budget.
d. incremental budgeting processes.
e. addressing budget assumptions.
The nursing executive team met to review last year's productivity metric to strategize for the upcoming year's metric. The team wants to be certain the productivity metric shows productivity was:
a. high.
b. low.
c. balanced.
d. iterative.