The effect of the reformed nurse staffing policy on employment of nurses in Korea

AIM: This study aims to analyse the employment effect of reformed nurse staffing policy which is the “Integrated Nursing and Care Service” scheme that was introduced by the Korean government. DESIGN: Economic evaluation study focusing on employment effect. METHOD: An input–output model was used to estimate the employment‐inducing effect of the new staffing policy. The analysed data of 26,381 beds, of 400 hospitals that are participated in the Integrated Nursing and Care Service scheme were retrieved from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database. RESULTS: The job‐creation effect of the new staffing policy was estimated to be 48.5 persons per USD 1 million expenditure, which means 28,154 persons were employed when USD 580.15 million expenditures was paid to the hospitals by the National Health Insurance Service. In addition, the policy had an employment‐inducing effect which is as high as 3.09~6.07 times higher than that of similar industries and all industries.