RICHMOND, VA – Our Lady of Oddi Hospital (OLOH) CEO, Mr. Benjamin Wilkerson, is being credited with developing a novel idea that may save the U.S. Healthcare and Insurance sector a projected 34.8 billion dollars in the next 3 years alone.
Mr. Wilkerson devised a plan to increase the nurse to patient ratio in the hospital to 10 patients for every nurse.
“I remember sitting at my mahogany desk in my office on the 15th floor of the hospital when all of a sudden the light bulb went off,” explained Wilkerson. “After a hard 3 hours shift in the office, it was nearing time to try and squeeze lunch within a short 2-hour window. Suddenly, I thought, why do our nurses only take care of 6 patients at a time? Besides bringing some food and Dilaudid, what else do they do all day?”
Wilkerson jumped to his excel spreadsheet and quickly calculated the savings. He realized that he would be able to lay off 50% of his nursing staff to save millions of dollars a year. In fact, he recognized that he wouldn’t even have to pay severances since many nurses would just quit instead of being fired.
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of this sooner,” stated Wilkerson. “Patient safety advocates will also be happy that I limited the ratio to 9:1 for labor deck patients and 8:1 for ICU patients since those patients sometimes require more time for charting and coding.”
Clearly some patients may not be as satisfied with their care, but the cost savings will easily offset the few unhappy patients.
Wilkerson is expected to receive the Hospital Administration Diamond Savings Award at this year’s Hospital Administration Conference in Las Vegas.
