Published April, 2023
A new study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS) addresses a significant increase in surgical nursing labor costs and the resultant decrease in department of surgery financial margins following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research, lead and authored by Clayton Brinster, MD, Director of the Ochsner Aortic Center, along with Ochsner vascular surgeon Samuel Money, MD, MBA and Ochsner financial operations director Thomas Escousse, MBA, demonstrates that this nationwide trend is not sustainable, and fiscal recovery will require sustained, strategic workforce allocation.
Operating room, inpatient, and outpatient financials were analyzed at Ochsner Health in New Orleans over two, 21-month periods with the two cohorts reflecting fiscal metrics before COVID and during COVID. Results showed monthly surgical nursing costs increased drastically with related significant decreases in departmental contribution to margin (profit) during the pandemic, despite no significant change in operative case volume and surgical revenue.
“This amalgam of extreme increases in labor spending and decreased hospital financial margins is developing into a perfect storm of impending fiscal disaster nationwide, even as the strain of the pandemic on health systems has eased,” said Dr. Brinster.
“The type of acute labor shortage that has continued intensifies hospitals’ existing hazardous financial position by prompting expensive and exhaustive recruitment and retention compendiums, which in turn drive extensive increases in generalized and labor expenditures,” he added.
An extensive interview with Dr. Brinster regarding the study and its results is currently featured in JACS’s The Operative Word podcast, which features one, high-profile article per month from the national surgical literature.
