15.457 advanced analytics of finance

Health Budget Request Workbook: Step-by-Step Guide

NURS 6211: Finance and Economics in Healthcare Delivery

Healthcare Budget Request Workbook: Step-by-Step Guide

Healthcare Budget Request Workbook: Step-by-Step Guide

COURSE

Table of Contents

Introduction

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

Section 1:

Spreadsheet Orientation (optional) . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

Section 2:

Assignment 1: Spreadsheet Fundamentals . . . . . .

11

As is the case with any organization, healthcare organizations establish strategic goals in support of their vision and mission. In turn, initiatives are pursued in hopes of achieving goals.

Introduction

In a perfect world, every initiative that the organization values would be pursued. But healthcare organizations have limited resources. Hence decisions must be made about which initiatives to pursue. Such decisions are typically based on several factors, including:

· the perceived value of the initiative

· how strongly the initiatives support organizational missions and goals

· potential for return on investment

· resources required.

Nurse leaders and others who drive the pursuit of these initiatives need to be sensitive to these factors. Value, support of objectives, and return on investment are usually communicated by developing a business case for the initiative. The need for resources is typically communicated by developing a formal budget request.

A budget request is a formal document that most organizations require from those seeking resources (funding) for various projects and initiatives. When successful, a budget request results in the initiative being included as part of the organization’s budget ; a planning tool that allocates resources (such as money or personnel) to the activities and capital needed to support the pursuit of strategies for a given time period (typically a year).

Throughout this course you will work on the development of a budget request for a healthcare product or service you propose to the leadership of your organization. As you do so, you will consider your audience for that request, financial and other resources you will need to launch the initiative, and other factors. You will utilize spreadsheets to help you analyze the financial impact, and you will develop a business case to advocate for your proposal to the leadership of your organization.

Spreadsheet Orientation (optional)

Section 1

A spreadsheet is a category of software designed to help analyze numeric information. Microsoft Excel is the most common spreadsheet tool used in business.

Spreadsheets like Excel are especially useful when performing financial calculations and analyses, such as those you will conduct in subsequent assignments in this course to analyze the financial impact of the initiative you propose. Spreadsheets enable the quick manipulation and calculation of large amounts of numeric data. When developed properly, they also help conduct “what-if” analyses, allowing users to change certain values to determine the impacts on results (such as profits).

The following material will guide you through completion of the Assignment Spreadsheet Fundamentals . To complete this assignment, you will need:

· This section of the Healthcare Budget Request Workbook: Step-by-Step Guide

· The Excel file “Clinic.xlsx”, located in the Learning Resources

The following is a practice exercise designed to introduce, or provide practice for, the following:

· Creation of worksheet tabs

· Navigation of a worksheet

· Management of various types of worksheet data

· Creation of Excel formulas and functions

This guided exercise is optional and will not be graded. If you are new to spreadsheets and/or Microsoft Excel, you are strongly encouraged to complete this exercise to familiarize yourself with important spreadsheet functionality that you will utilize throughout this course. If you are already familiar with these spreadsheet fundamentals, you may nevertheless benefit from this activity as a refresher. Depending on your comfort level with the material, you may choose to skip the practice exercise and proceed to the next section, titled Assignment 1: Step-by-Step Guide , to begin work on Assignment 1.

Practice Exercise (Optional): Spreadsheet Fundamental

The following exercise will help orient you to the basic functionality of Microsoft Excel in preparation of Assignment 1. To complete this optional exercise, you will need:

· This section of the Healthcare Budget Request Workbook: Step-by-Step Guide

· The Excel file “Clinic.xlsx”, located in the Learning Resources

1) Download and open the file “Clinic.xlsx” located in the Learning Resources.

Note : An open Excel file is also referred to as a workbook .

2) Spreadsheets organize screens of data by using columns and rows. Columns are labeled with letters and rows with numbers. The intersection of a row and column is referred to as a cell . Cell locations, or addresses , are identified based on the letter of the column and the number of the row. For example, the first cell in the spreadsheet is referred to as “A1”. Cell addresses are always shown in the Address box near the top of the screen.

3) Notice the tabs at the bottom of the screen that read “HealthWaysBudget” and “HealthwaysFinancials”. When clicked, these tabs open separate worksheets (individual pages used to organize different categories of data within a workbook).

4) In Excel, you can create many different worksheets within a single workbook. For example, in this workbook the HealthWaysBudget worksheet presents a budget report for the organization, while the HealthwaysFinancials worksheet presents several financial statements for the organization.

Note : Financial statements will be discussed in more detail later in the course.

5) Create a new tab in this workbook. To do so:

a. Click the New sheet (“+” symbol) at the bottom of the screen.

b. To name the worksheet, double-click the tab and type “Practice”.

Note : You can also rename the new tab by right-clicking the tab and selecting “Rename”.

6) Note that there are various types of data used in Excel:

· Text is data that utilize letters. Numbers can also be used in text data. However, these numbers must be used in conjunction with letters, or must manually be set to text.

· Numerical data utilize numbers exclusively. Unlike text data which can use numbers, numerical data cannot contain letters.

· Currency/Accounting data utilize numbers in conjunction with a currency marker.

· Dates are pieces of data that denote a date and/or time. There are multiple formats for dates within Excel.

· Percentage data are a subset of numerical data that is converted into a per