Question

You are the nurse manager on a pediatric unit. For the next fiscal year you will be adding 4 intermediate care beds in addition to the 15 acute-care beds that you already have. Your occupancy level runs close to 90%.

You calculate that you will need to add TWO  FTE RN positions per 8-hour shift to cover the additional beds.

1. Calculate the number of FTE’s you will need to provide full time coverage for 2 FTE’s per 8-hour shift.   Be sure to take in to consideration that you are a 24/7 operation and that your staff will need to take vacation, sick and other time away from work.

Each FTE will get paid for the following :

1. Holidays 9
2. Sick days 7
3. Vacation days 7
4. Education days 2

You need to calculate the Net Paid Days for each new FTE to be able to determine the total number of FTE’s needed to provide 24/7 coverage as you add the new beds.  

Show your calculations.

2. Assume that the cost of a Registered nurse salary is $50,000 and benefits are $15,000. Compute the total annual cost of the additional staff.

Show your calculations.

Answer 1

To cover the additional beds we need 24 hours working 2 FTE. So number of hours required in a year.

365 days

24 hours

2 staff

= 365 * 24 * 2

= 17520 Hours

One FTE will be work

340 paid days ( 365 days - Holiday 9 - sick leave 7 - vacation leave 7 - education days 2)

8 hours in day

= 340 * 8

= 2720 Hours

To accomodate 17520 hours we need 7 FTE (17520 hours divided by 2720 hours = 6.4412 FTE ). As FTE will be rouding off to higher number.

Annual cost

Cost of 1 FTE / additional staff = 65,000 (Salary 50,000 + benefits 15,000)

Annual Cost of 1 FTE / additional staff = 65000*12 = $ 780,000

Annual Cost of 7 FTE / additional staff = 780,000*7 = $ 5,460,000

Number of FTE's Required is 7 & Annual cost is $ 5.460,000.