Healthcare systems and hospitals are constantly looking for ways to improve their operations and reduce costs. One important metric to track in these facilities is the nursing Hours Per Patient Day (HPPD) goal. In this article, we will discuss what HPPD is, the importance of managing your facility’s HPPD goals, and how to effectively manage your HPPD goal to maximize efficiency and reduce costs.
What is HPPD?
HPPD is a metric commonly used in healthcare facilities to measure the productivity and efficiency of their operations. It stands for Nursing Hours Per Patient Day, and it is calculated by dividing the total number of nursing hours worked by the total number of patients in the facility. This metric is used to track the amount of time spent caring for each patient and can identify areas of improvement in the facility's operations.
This metric is essential for healthcare facilities because it helps them understand how effectively they use their resources. By tracking the time spent caring for each patient, facilities can identify areas where they may be over or under-utilizing their staff and adjust their operations accordingly. This can help facilities optimize staffing levels, leading to cost savings and improved patient care.
HPPD is also used to measure the quality of care that patients are receiving. Facilities with high HPPD scores typically have better patient outcomes and higher patient satisfaction rates. This is because the higher the HPPD score, the more time and attention is being devoted to each patient, which can lead to better care. HPPD is ultimately one of the primary metrics to measure and optimize operations and costs.
According to a study published in Med Care, HPPD is a critical metric for measuring the productivity and efficiency of healthcare facilities (NCBI, 2011). The study found that by tracking the amount of time spent caring for each patient, healthcare facilities can identify areas where they may be over or under-utilizing their staff and adjust their operations accordingly.
The Importance of Managing Your HPPD Goals
Ensure Patients Receive Optimal Care: By tracking the amount of time spent caring for each patient, facilities can identify areas where patients may not be receiving enough care, take steps to address this problem, and ensure optimal patient care.
Ensure Financial Stability: By monitoring the amount of time spent caring for each patient, facilities can identify areas where they can reduce costs and increase revenue, which can help to ensure that the facility is financially stable in the long term.
Maintain Compliance with Regulatory Standards: Hospitals are required to meet certain HPPD goals to maintain their license and accreditation. By monitoring HPPD, healthcare facilities can ensure they are meeting these standards and avoid penalties or other issues.
Identify Areas of Improvement: It helps the facility identify the areas where they can improve their operations and ensure they provide the best quality of care to patients.
Better Allocation of Staff: By monitoring the HPPD, the facility can understand if they are over or under-utilizing their staff, which helps them optimize their staffing levels, which can lead to cost savings and improved patient care.
Better Budget Planning: By monitoring the HPPD, the facility can understand the cost of providing care to patients and ensure they stay within budget.
As stated in My American Nurse, "Tracking HPPD helps to ensure each of the units in a hospital are meeting financial targets to remain financially healthy.” By monitoring the amount of time spent caring for each patient, facilities can identify areas where they can reduce costs and increase revenue, which can help to ensure that the facility is financially stable in the long term.
How To Effectively Manage Your HPPD Goal
Managing your HPPD goal can be a tricky task. Several factors can affect HPPD, including staffing levels, patient demographics, and facility layout. However, there are solutions available that can help healthcare facilities effectively manage their HPPD goals.
One solution is to use a healthcare workforce partner like ShiftMed. ShiftMed provides health systems, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities with the tools to achieve stability in their healthcare staffing pools and achieve full control of labor costs. ShiftMed provides facilities with long-term, high-quality nurses. Not to mention, our nurses are hired as W-2 workers, so all risk and legal liability like worker’s compensation, overtime, and unemployment insurance is lifted from facility partners.
Furthermore, ShiftMed handles the recruitment and credentialing of nurses for streamlined onboarding to fill facilities with the highest quality of nurses quickly. This can help facilities reduce the burden of multi-system scheduling and automate, streamline, and synchronize the staffing process. ShiftMed’s technology provides accountable healthcare staffing to help facilities meet their shifting and fluctuating nurse staffing requirements as needed.
For example, the Bedrock Care Group, a nursing facility in Philadelphia, partnered with ShiftMed to improve its HPPD goal. Uncontrollable surge pricing lead to overspend on healthcare labor, leading to an annual revenue shortfall of $5 million. However, ShiftMed’s flat-rate pricing allowed them to save $1.2 million in five weeks and add more than 1,300 hours of labor to its care operations. This case study highlights the effectiveness of ShiftMed in helping facilities manage their HPPD goals and save on labor costs.
Managing your HPPD is crucial for ensuring that patients are receiving the appropriate level of care, maintaining financial stability, and compliance with regulatory standards. Solutions like ShiftMed can help facilities manage their HPPD goal and save on labor costs.