Running head: ZERO BASED BUDGET

Zero Based Budget

Katherine Sheppard
Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing
NUR 4240

Honor Code:
On our honor, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment or test, and I
pledge that I am in compliance with the BSMCON Honor System.

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Zero Based Budget
This new service that I have proposed to my organization, Mary Immaculate Hospital, is
to implement a spa team. The spa team at Mary Immaculate would consist of certified nursing
assistants (CNAs) to perform duties such as complete care baths, healing touch massage, and
music therapy. There were many driving forces that would be good cause to implement the Spa
team including: patient satisfaction, hemodynamics, pain and skin assessments, and
developmental changes for the staff.
The selected audience that I chose to present this plan was to our chief nurse executive,
Jeff Doucette. By implementing the spa team I have offered three alternatives with budget plans,
advantages and disadvantages.
Process
The methods I have chosen in researching this proposal was to figure out the approximate
costs of each employees hourly rate. To determine an approximate cost I chose to utilize the
resources by the U.S. Department of Labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor the
average Cost for CNAs is $ 13.67 and the average cost for RNs is $33.56 (U.S. Department of
Labor, 2014). I have discussed costs of employees and how the hospital utilizes staff within their
budget with many people throughout Bon Secours Administration. Ways that I have completed
this process was to address budgets throughout Mary Immaculate units. Nursing supervisors
were able to provide me with an algorithm to use to demonstrate the amount of hours per patient
required. I have shown this in my PowerPoint under alternative two. This algorithm has shown
that with adding in the Spa team, the amount of patient hours and money would still be under
budget.

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This was a difficult task to complete in many ways. First, I had to figure out the
approximate costs of each employee within their job title. After gaining this information, I then
asked nursing administration how they budgeted employee wages into a work year. After
speaking with Lynn Newberry, I learned about full time equivalents (FTE). Each full time
employee is given 2,080 hours a year and each personal body is considered as 4.2 (L. Newberry,
personal reference, September 26, 2015). In order to figure out costs regarding additional staff
utilized for my project I had to multiply hourly rate, amount of bodies, and number of hours per
year. This resulted in my costs for the year for each additional service.
Some strategies that I used when addressing my challenges were discussing them with
other coworkers. I presented my presentation with many fellow colleagues in order to gain
insight on how the new service would benefit them as well.

Presentation
When creating my presentation I chose to do it in a PowerPoint. I chose this option
because I was able to formulate each option on different slides to differentiate them. I was able to
add in advantages and disadvantages of each option that I provided. The costs show the budget
for the Medical Surgical unit.
Some topics I considered when preparing my proposal was not to make it too difficult. I
tried to be straight forward with the costs of employees in order to make the presentation easy to
follow. I knew that I would be presenting this to our nursing administration so I also wanted to
incorporate how each option would benefit the hospital.

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The presentation shows options for the Medical surgical unit because that is where I got
most of my information from the nursing supervisors and most familiar with. I have presented
my case to Jeff Doucette, CNE and Lynn Newberry, nurse educator. They have enjoyed reading
about the spa team and possibly plan to start the service in the future.
Reflection
This project has been very intriguing. I have learned so much more about financial costs
of employees than I ever had in the past. I learned about how it is not based strictly on each
employee but the amount of nurses per patient. I learned about FTEs and how they incorporate
them into hours in a year. There is a lot to know when budgeting a new staff member and the
amount of training required. By talking with nursing administration and staff members I gained a
whole new perspective on budget. It is not an easy task to do but it can be done. By learning
about budget, nurses will have a better understanding of healthcare in general.
I have hopes that in the future Mary immaculate will be able to implement the spa team
in some form. There are still a few things within the budget plan that need to be added. I did not
think to add in benefits due to the different packages available to staff. I would recommend
utilizing alternative two and adding in two staff members to start and complete a trial run before
implementing it throughout the other hospitals. This would be a great service to improve patient
satisfaction and employee satisfaction all in one.

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References
United States Department of Labor. (2014). Occupational employment and wages, May 2014.
Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes311014.htm