Strategies to expand the distribution of nursing talent in the United States.

This panel paper is the third installment in a six-part Nursing Outlook special edition based on the 2022 Emory Business Case for Nursing Summit. The 2022 summit was led by Emory School of Nursing in partnership with Emory School of Business. It convened national nursing, health care, and business leaders to explore possible solutions to nursing workforce crises, including the nursing shortage.

The impact of emergency department observation units on a health system.

Importance: Protocol driven ED observation units (EDOU) have been shown to improve outcomes for patients and payers, however their impact on an entire health system is unknown. Two thirds of US hospitals do not have such units.

Objective: To determine the impact of a protocol-driven EDOU on health system length of stay, cost, and resource utilization.

The impact of hybrid coronary revascularization on hospital costs and reimbursements.

Background: Hybrid coronary revascularization (HCR) combines a minimally invasive, left internal mammary artery-left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) bypass with percutaneous intervention of non-LAD vessels for patients with multivessel coronary disease. The financial implications of HCR have not been compared with off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) through sternotomy.

Methods: The contribution margin is a fiduciary calculation (best hospital payment estimate--total variable costs) used by hospitals to determine fiscal viability of services.

Cost-effectiveness of defending against bioterrorism: a comparison of vaccination and antibiotic prophylaxis against anthrax.

Background: Weaponized Bacillus anthracis is one of the few biological agents that can cause death and disease in sufficient numbers to devastate an urban setting.

Objective: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of strategies for prophylaxis and treatment of an aerosolized B. anthracis bioterror attack.