Quantitative improvement of emergency rooms' nursing staff at Chamran Hospital using linear programming method

ABSTRACT

Most of Iran's health budget goes to hospitals as the largest care providing unit in the community. More than 60% of hospital resources are allocated for staffing. One of the problems facing hospitals especially in critical and sensitive parts such as in emergency room is appropriate staffing. This research was designed to investigate and improve nursing staffing and human resource planning at the emergency room of Chamran Hospital using Linear programming as amethod of Opertional Research. This descriptive-analytical study used a checklist for data collection. Study population included patients and nursing staff of emergency room during the months of November and December 2006 and January 2007. After estimating the average number of patients and the average time required for nursing care to each category of emergency patients, the number of nurses needed for each hospital shift was calculated using Wine Windows Quantitative Systems for Business [QSB] program. According to the findings, for more appropriate patient care, Chamran hospital emergency room needs at least 28 nurses per shift. Various models of Operational Research such as linear programming are practical for estimating the appropriate staffing at various parts of a hospital