IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/thssxx/v3y2014i1p18-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scale and skill-mix efficiencies in nursing home staffing: inside the black box

Author

Listed:
  • Dennis Moeke
  • Ger Koole
  • Lineke Verkooijen

Abstract

Care workers account for a significant proportion of the total health expenditure in nursing homes and are by far the largest controllable resource. Therefore, determining the appropriate number and type of care workers required plays an important role in the search for more efficiency. This study provides insights into how and why ‘scale of scheduling’ and the enlargement of care workers’ jobs (blending tasks of different qualification levels (QLs)) affect the number and type of staff required to meet the preferences (in terms of day and time) of nursing home residents. The scheduling data for plannable care activities of three separate decision-making units within a single Dutch nursing home have been analyzed. The results show that in >85% of the examined cases, substantial scale and skill-mix economies can be achieved. We also found that the correlation between the demand patterns of different types of care tasks is of considerable importance when it comes to possible scale and skill-mix efficiencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Dennis Moeke & Ger Koole & Lineke Verkooijen, 2014. "Scale and skill-mix efficiencies in nursing home staffing: inside the black box," Health Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 18-28, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:thssxx:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:18-28
    DOI: 10.1057/hs.2013.9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/hs.2013.9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/hs.2013.9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Forbes, M.A. & Harris, M.G. & Jansen, H.M. & van der Schoot, F.A. & Taimre, T., 2024. "Combining optimisation and simulation using logic-based Benders decomposition," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 312(3), pages 840-854.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:thssxx:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:18-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/thss .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.