In NU420 Unit 6, budgeted FTEs are built from hours per patient day, then one month's labor variance is recalculated against the census a progressive care unit actually carried. Searches like "nu 420 unit 6 assignment example", "nu420 unit 6 sample" and "nu420 unit 6 example" land here.
Thirty Hours Over or 570? Flexing a Progressive Care Unit's Labor Budget to Its Actual Census
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Purdue University Global
NU420: Leadership and Management in the Changing Health Care Environment
Unit 6 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Composite unit written as a model document. Figures are illustrative; the blended hourly rate is a placeholder.
Assumptions
One FTE is 2,080 paid hours a year. The nonproductive allowance, for vacation, sick time and education, is 11 percent of paid hours. Care hours include registered nurses and patient care technicians, not the manager or the unit secretary.
Part 1: The Annual Budget
Average daily census: 20.5 patients.
Hours per patient day: 12.0.
Care hours a day: 20.5 × 12.0 = 246.
Productive hours a year: 246 × 365 = 89,790.
Productive FTEs: 89,790 / 2,080 = 43.2.
Paid FTEs, allowing 11 percent nonproductive time: 43.2 / 0.89 = about 48.5.
Part 2: One Month Against the Plan
Budgeted patient days: 20.5 × 30 = 615.
Actual patient days: 570, an average census of 19.0.
Actual worked hours: 7,410.
Static comparison. Budgeted hours for the month: 615 × 12.0 = 7,380. Variance: 7,410 − 7,380 = 30 hours over. On this reading the month looks on target.
Flexed comparison. Earned hours, the hours the actual census justified: 570 × 12.0 = 6,840. Variance: 7,410 − 6,840 = 570 hours over. At a blended rate of [$58] an hour, that is about [$33,060].
Part 3: Why the Readings Differ and What to Change
A static budget compares hours with a plan that assumed more patients than came; when census falls, hours stay close to plan while the patients they serve do not. Flexing the budget to actual patient days shows the gap the static report hides (Marquis & Huston, 2021).
The extra hours came from two sources. Day shifts were scheduled for 21 patients on most days, when the census averaged 19, because the schedule was written six weeks in advance from the budgeted census. And the night shift holds a minimum of four registered nurses whatever the census.
Recommendation: a written flex rule tied to the 0500 census. When the census is two or more patients below the scheduled level, one care hour position is offered as voluntary time off or reassigned. A safety floor keeps at least four registered nurses on every shift, because lower staffing is associated with higher mortality (Needleman et al., 2011). Any state staffing requirement overrides the flex rule.
What the Rule Does Not Solve
The night minimum will still produce hours above earned in low-census months. That is a deliberate choice for safety, and the budget should show it as a known, explained variance rather than as overspending.
References
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2021). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Needleman, J., Buerhaus, P., Pankratz, V. S., Leibson, C. L., Stevens, S. R., & Harris, M. (2011). Nurse staffing and inpatient hospital mortality. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(11), 1037-1045. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa1001025
How this NU420 Unit 6 example is structured
Every calculation sits on its own line with the operation named, so a grader can follow the arithmetic without rebuilding it. The budget part states its assumptions first: the 2,080-hour base, the nonproductive percentage, and which roles the care hours include, registered nurses and patient care technicians but not the manager or unit secretary. The variance part is the center, and it explains in plain language why a static budget can hide overspending when census falls: hours stay close to plan while the patients they serve do not. Part three traces the extra hours to day shifts scheduled for twenty-one patients when the census was nineteen, and to a night minimum that holds whatever the census. The recommendation is a written flex rule tied to the 0500 census, with a safety floor and a note that any state staffing requirement overrides it.
Get an NU420 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Worked figures for the Unit 6 case, every step set out and every assumption stated, come back in 24-48h. The case should arrive exactly as posted, census, bed count, hours target, wage figures and all, together with the rubric. A first custom sample costs nothing, and the numbers used are the ones your case supplies. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU420 Unit 6 questions, answered
What is the difference between a static and a flexible budget?
A static budget fixes hours at the level planned for the budgeted census. A flexible budget recalculates allowed hours for the census that actually occurred, multiplying real patient days by the target hours per patient day. Nursing units are usually judged on the flexed figure, because workload drives staffing. The sample shows both readings for one month so the difference is visible.
Should nonproductive time be included in hours per patient day?
Usually not. Hours per patient day commonly counts productive care hours only, and nonproductive time such as vacation, sick leave and education is added when converting to paid positions. Some organizations define it differently, and some prompts supply their own definition. The sample states its definition in part one so that every later figure can be checked against it.
My exercise gives a budget but no census. What then?
Then the exercise probably runs backward, from dollars to hours to the census the budget can support. Working in that direction means dividing the labor budget by an average hourly rate, removing the nonproductive share, and dividing by the target hours per patient day. Send the case as written, and the sample follows whichever direction the prompt requires.