Correlation between adequate nursing staff and the hospital performance: Case Study in Tehran University of Medical Sciences Hospitals

Background: As the biggest collection among various collections of hospital employees, nurses perform a vital role in the progress of the hospital actions and the improvement of community health. Objectives: This research intended to find the relationship between the shortage of nursing workforce and hospitals performance of Tehran’s Medical Sciences University. Materials and Methods: The current analysis was a cross-sectional definitive research, which was conducted in selected educational hospices associated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences during the year 2010. While using three researcher-made questionnaires, information was obtained from all clinical, paraclinical, commercial, managerial and support units of hospitals. Information was investigated according to the patterns of Iran's Healthcare Ministry and Medical Education by employing Excel software. Pabon Lasso model was used for performance measurement during the year 2010. The mixture of 3 indicators was applied to determine the period of stay, bed occupancy time and bed turnover. Results: The outcomes revealed that the personnel of nursing, in the 18 hospital wards (66.67%) were at levels below the standards, just one ward (3.7%) reached the standards requirements, and the remainder of the hospital wards (29.62%) were at greater levels than the standard requirements. Both hospitals were near the value 4 in the Pabon Lasso model. The correlation analysis among the nursing shortage and performance showed a meaningful relationship (P<0.05). Conclusion: Frequently, the examined hospices were challenged with a shortage of nursing workforce and the dissemination of workforce was not suitable. A decent supervision of workforce in conformity with the shortage of staff compensated and achieved the rules needed for the hospital’s nursing workforce and this would guide to an improvement in the performance of the hospitals’ actions and could present gratification for the personnel.