Premium labor at $929,138 a year against six core positions at $734,124: the NU513 Unit 7 staffing business case asks for the positions, shows a year one loss honestly and says when they pay back. Searches like "nu 513 unit 7 assignment example", "nu513 unit 7 sample" and "nu513 unit 7 example" land here.
Six Core Nurses Instead of Travelers and Overtime: A Staffing Business Case That Saves $195,014 a Year From Year Two
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU513: Health Care Finance, Economics, and Strategic Planning
Unit 7 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
All rates, hours and scenarios are composite and bracketed; the method follows standard nursing financial management.
Summary
Request: six registered nurse FTEs for the medicine unit. Return: about $195,014 a year in reduced premium labor once the positions are filled and oriented. Year one is a net cost in every scenario, because new nurses are paid while they orient and premium labor continues until they are independent; the case recovers that cost during year two and delivers a cumulative saving of about $323,000 by the end of year three in the base case.
Current State: Premium Labor
From payroll and contract records for the past twelve months:
1. Traveler contracts: two travelers at 48 hours a week, filled about 90 percent of weeks, 4,493 hours at a bracketed $96 an hour, $431,328.
2. Overtime: 6,739 hours at $73.87 an hour including payroll load, $497,810.
3. Total premium labor: $929,138 for 11,232 hours.
The argument depends on this cost being real and continuing rather than a temporary spike. The unit has carried two traveler contracts for [eighteen] consecutive months and overtime above [5] percent of worked hours in [eleven] of the last twelve.
The Proposal: Six Core Positions
1. Paid hours: six FTEs at 2,080 hours each, 12,480 hours.
2. Worked hours: after paid time off and education, about 90 percent, 11,232 hours, which matches the premium hours to be replaced.
3. Cost: 12,480 paid hours at a loaded rate of $58.824, $734,124 a year.
4. Onboarding: recruiting and orientation at about $21,600 per hire, $129,600, charged to year one.
Matching worked hours rather than paid hours to the hours being replaced is what keeps the comparison honest: a core nurse is paid for 2,080 hours but works about 1,872 of them on the unit (Finkler et al., 2013).
Steady State
At steady state, the unit saves $929,138 minus $734,124, or $195,014 a year. Onboarding of $129,600 is recovered from steady-state savings in about eight months.
Year One, Three Scenarios
Year one assumptions: premium labor for each position continues until its new nurse has been hired and completed a six-week orientation; each new nurse is paid from her start date.
Scenario 1, base: two hires start in each of the first three months. Year one net: a cost of about $67,000. Scenario 2, slower hiring: one hire a month from month three to month eight. Year one net: a cost of about $124,000. Scenario 3, agency rates fall to $80 an hour, with base-case hiring. Year one net: a cost of about $124,000, and steady-state savings shrink to about $123,000 a year, because the premium being replaced is smaller.
Year one loses money in every scenario, and the case says so, because a staffing case that promises an immediate saving will be judged on a promise it cannot keep.
Years Two and Three
Base case: year two saves $195,014; year three saves $195,014. Cumulative over three years: about $323,000, with cumulative break-even around month [16]. Slower hiring: cumulative about $266,000, break-even around month [20]. Lower agency rates: cumulative about $122,000, break-even around month [24].
Even the least favorable scenario returns more than the positions cost within three years, and the case rests on that, not on year one.
Benefits Not Counted
Several benefits are real but left out of the figures. Core nurses stay longer than travelers and learn the unit's patients and processes, which supports continuity and quality. Lower overtime reduces fatigue: when staff nurses across the country kept logbooks of their shifts, the risk of making an error rose when shifts exceeded twelve and a half hours and with overtime (Rogers et al., 2004). Fatigue also feeds turnover, and each prevented departure is worth about $49,000 by the unit's turnover estimate, built on the Jones seven-category method (Jones, 2005). And a stable core staff reduces orientation of travelers, which currently falls on charge nurses every thirteen weeks.
Risks
Hiring may be slower than planned, which delays savings but does not change the steady state. New nurses may leave in their first year, repeating onboarding costs; the case assumes one of six leaves in year one, already reflected in onboarding. Census may fall, reducing the hours needed; if census fell by [10] percent, the unit would reduce agency hours first, preserving most of the savings.
Why Not Keep the Travelers
The alternative to this request is to continue as now. That option is not free of risk either. Traveler rates have swung widely in recent years, and the unit's contracts renew every thirteen weeks at the market rate, so the $929,138 figure could rise as easily as fall. Travelers also leave on schedule, taking what they have learned about the unit's patients with them, and each new traveler needs a shorter but real orientation from the charge nurse. Overtime at the current level is concentrated among [eight] experienced nurses, several of whom have said in stay interviews that they are considering reducing their hours. Continuing as now therefore carries a hidden cost that the premium labor total does not show: the risk of losing the core nurses the unit already has.
Decision Requested
Approve six registered nurse FTEs, with recruitment beginning in [month], and a review of premium labor spending at six and twelve months against the figures above.
References
Finkler, S. A., Jones, C. B., & Kovner, C. T. (2013). Financial management for nurse managers and executives (4th ed.). Elsevier.
Jones, C. B. (2005). The costs of nurse turnover, part 2: Application of the Nursing Turnover Cost Calculation Methodology. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 35(1), 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005110-200501000-00014
Rogers, A. E., Hwang, W.-T., Scott, L. D., Aiken, L. H., & Dinges, D. F. (2004). The working hours of hospital staff nurses and patient safety. Health Affairs, 23(4), 202-212. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.23.4.202
How this NU513 Unit 7 example is structured
The case is written for a finance committee, so the ask and the return come before the clinical rationale. Current spending is established first, from payroll and contract records, because the argument depends on premium labor being a real and continuing cost. Pricing is honest: worked rather than paid hours are matched against the hours being replaced, and onboarding is charged to year one. Scenarios carry most of the analytical weight. Year one loses money in every scenario, because new nurses are paid while they orient and premium labor continues until they are independent, and the case says so rather than promising an immediate saving; the argument rests on years two and three, with cumulative break-even between about month 16 and month 24 depending on hiring pace and agency rates.
Get an NU513 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Overtime hours, traveler spending and wage rates are what the model is built from, drawn from a real unit or from the case; send them with the Unit 7 instructions and rubric. A business case with a quantified return and scenarios is ready within 24-48h, the first one free. Arguing for your own positions is the work the model leaves open. 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.
NU513 Unit 7 questions, answered
What counts as a quantified return for staffing?
Money saved, cost avoided or revenue gained, stated in dollars with its basis. For staffing, the usual sources are reduced premium labor, avoided turnover and avoided harm such as falls or pressure injuries. The sample uses premium labor alone in its base case because it can be measured from records, and it names turnover as an uncounted upside.
Should I include clinical outcomes like patient safety?
Yes, after the financial case, not instead of it. The sample describes continuity of care and fewer unfamiliar nurses on the unit as benefits that support the request. Where an outcome can be priced credibly, such as a hospital's own cost per fall with injury, it can join the return. Where it cannot, describe it and keep it out of the totals.
Why is year one almost break-even?
Because new positions cost money before they save it. Recruiting and orientation are charged in year one, and hires arrive over several months, so the full saving takes time. Showing this honestly tends to persuade a finance committee more than an optimistic first year would, since committees know how hiring works. The case rests its argument on years two and three.