NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Health Care Delivery | Week 8

NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Health Care Delivery | Week 8

Get nursing writing help on NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Health Care Delivery | Week 8 assignment

Six months have passed and your university clinic has been allowed to remain open. As you review the expenditures for those past six months, you are surprised to see how high certain costs have risen. As you reflect back, you are reminded of the flu epidemic that hit the university and affected many more students than you planned on needing services. Does this epidemic account for all of the increased costs? Could there be some other factors that contributed to the overspending?

This week you focus on key analytical tools used for determining the extent that different factors explain discrepancies from the original budget.

on NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Health Care Delivery | Week 8 essay assignment

Learning Objectives

NURS 6211 Week 8: Variance Analysis

Students will: 

  • Assess the importance of financial analytical tools in decision making
  • Apply volume adjusted variance analysis to financial decision making

Assignment: Using Variance Analysis in Decision Making

Having a budget is critical for the financial stability of an organization. Keeping track of how well the organization is actually adhering to the budget, and subsequent identification of why the budget numbers are being missed is equally important. Without this critical “why” piece, it is difficult to make the necessary adjustments to the budget or to organizational behavior that might be promoting overspending.

A good budget is built with thoughtful consideration of future costs and revenue. Though your budget is formulated with expected figures in mind, the actual resulting values may vary considerably. This variance–from projected to actual–can be a pleasant surprise or a fiscal nightmare and can make financial decision making difficult. Fortunately, variance analysis can enable management to determine why variance occurred and what can be done to mitigate its effects.

For those not comfortable with the use of Microsoft Excel, this week’s Optional Resources suggest several tutorials.

To prepare: NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Health Care Delivery | Week 8 essay assignment

  • Review the information in this week’s Learning Resources dealing with variance analysis, how it is calculated, and how it can be used in decision making.
  • View the video  Week 8 Application Assignment Tutorial: Variance Analysis, provided in this week’s Learning Resources.
  • Use the Week 8 Application Assignment Template, provided in this week’s Learning Resources, to complete this assignment.   Carefully examine the information in each of the scenarios and provide the necessary calculations.  Using this information will help you answer the questions.

By Day 7

Note: For those Assignments in this course that require you to perform calculations you must:

  • Use the Excel spreadsheet template for the Week 8 assignment
  • Show all your calculations and formulas in the spreadsheet.
  • Answer any questions included with the problems (as text in the Excel spreadsheet).