Question

When budgeting for personnel, hospitals typically use FTEs to calculate the number of employee hours needed to process the work tasks in a given department, unit, or function. FTEs (full-time equivalent) are generally calculated on the typical workweek as defined by the facility:

1 FTE = 40 hours/week
40 hours/week x 52 weeks = 2,080 hours/year
The second part of the staffing calculation consists of estimating the volume of work to be done.
Work standard: 16 minutes to draw blood from a patient
Volume per day: 60 patients needing blood drawn
60 patients x 16 minutes = 960 minutes needed each day
1 FTE = 480 minutes per work day
960 / 480 = 2.0
Needed: 2.0 FTEs to process 60 patients per day
If the hospital could reduce the time needed to draw blood to 8 minutes, then the number of FTEs needed would be:
.5 FTEs
1.0 FTEs
1.5 FTEs
2.0 FTEs

Answer 1

Answer: If the time needed to draw blood from a patient is reduced to 8 minutes, we need to recalculate the number of FTEs required to process 60 patients per day.

Using the original calculation, we found that 60 patients x 16 minutes = 960 minutes are needed each day to draw blood.

Now, if the time needed is reduced to 8 minutes per patient, we can recalculate the volume per day:

60 patients x 8 minutes = 480 minutes needed each day

Since 1 FTE is equivalent to 480 minutes per workday, we can determine the number of FTEs needed:

480 minutes / 480 minutes = 1.0 FTEs

Therefore, if the time needed to draw blood is reduced to 8 minutes, the number of FTEs needed would be 1.0 FTEs.

Step-by-step explanation: