Economic Costs of Staff Turnover in Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities

Economic Costs of Staff Turnover in Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities
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Economic Costs of Staff Turnover in Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities
Over the years, staff turnover has been a significant and recurring challenge in hospitals and healthcare facilities in the United States. Healthcare is one of the sectors usually faced with a high staff turnover rate (Rondeau & Wagar, 2016). In 2013, it was identified that turnover rates in healthcare organizations ranged between 8.7 and 31.7% nationwide, with an average turnover rate being 14.7% (Rondeau & Wagar, 2016). Antwi and Bowblis (2018) state that the turnovers' causes can be attributed to external factors such as supply and demand in the market, economic factors, and internal factors like salaries, supervision, and working conditions. Nevertheless, staff turnovers have resulted in economic costs for hospitals and healthcare facilities.
Notably, staff turnover has economic implications, especially concerning the quality of care provided to patients. In essence, a high turnover rate in healthcare facilities tends to reduce the effectiveness and productivity of care and increase operating costs. When nurses and other healthcare practitioners are assigned to the same patients, there is a likelihood of forming close bonds that often result in better health outcomes (Antwi & Bowblis, 2018). Antwi and Bowblis (2018) also argue that staff turnover is one of the factors that may cause low hospital quality. The regular presence of new healthcare staff, such as nurses, leads to probability in dissatisfaction among patients, lack of organizational knowledge, and potential patient errors, among others. More so, high turnover rates will lead to nurse/staff shortage, leading to a decrease in patients' quality of care (Antwi & Bowblis, 2018). In turn, patients will begin avoiding seeking healthcare services from facilities identified to have low-quality services. As a result, this will result in such facilities incurring economic costs as they will lose revenues generated from providing services to patients.