Probability Analysis
Probability Analysis
Agency A 60% Filling shifts 100% Fixed wages
Agency B 50% Filling shifts 70% Fixed wage
106 PART 2 • LEARNING KEY SKILLS IN NURSING MANAGEMENT
the likelihood that an event will or will not occur based on a manager’s personal judgment and beliefs.
Janeen, a nurse manager of a specialized cardiac intensive care unit, faces the task of recruiting scarce and highly skilled nurses to care for coronary artery bypass graft patients. The obvious alternative is to offer a salary and benefits package that rivals that of all other institutions in the area. However, this means Janeen will have costly special- ized nursing personnel in her budget who are not easily absorbed by other units in the organization. The probability that coronary artery bypass graft procedures will become obsolete in the future is unknown. In addition, other factors (e.g., increased competi- tion, government regulations regarding reimbursement) may contribute to conditions of uncertainty.
The Decision-Making Process The rational decision-making model is a series of steps that managers take in an effort to make logical, well-grounded rational choices that maximize the achievement of objec- tives. First identify all possible outcomes, examine the probability of each alternative, and then take the action that yields the highest probability of achieving the most desirable outcome. Not all steps are used in every decision nor are they always used in the same order. The rational decision-making model is thought of as the ideal but often cannot be fully used.