INside, persistent challenges plague health care systems.
Chronic nurse understaffing, burnout, and high turnover rates threaten quality, equitable, and affordable care. And systems’ traditional assessment of nursing’s economic value through a “do more with less” framework exacerbates the problem.
Economist Olga Yakusheva, PhD, is challenging that.
A recent addition to the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON) faculty, Yakusheva is an internationally recognized expert on the economic value of nursing and its contribution to patient, societal, and organizational outcomes. Her 2024 paper “The Nursing Human Capital Value Model” proposes a new conceptual model for nursing’s economic value, guided by the economic theories of human capital, production theory, and value theory.
The new case for nursing
The Nursing Human Capital Value Model challenges health systems and organizations to see nursing not as a costly labor input but as human capital—investment in a profession strengthened by the diversity of its individual members and the value each brings to the workplace, such as experience, educational preparation, and clinical expertise. “Many large, national, and international research studies have demonstrated a strong link between nursing human capital characteristics and improved patient and organizational outcomes, and so it is time that the old ‘do more with less’ thinking toward nurses must be retired,” explains Yakusheva. The Nursing Human Capital Value Model redefines nursing’s economic value as the organizational and societal return on that investment, reflected in improved consumer, nurse, and organizational outcomes.
Dr. Yakusheva is also engaged in research to reform the health care payment model so that nurses have a better line of site of the revenue they generate and more decision-making autonomy over their practice. “Nursing’s value is much greater than the sum of the tasks performed by nursing staff. I believe it’s time nurses are recognized for the full value of the human capital they bring to their organizations and patients. I also believe it is time nursing gets its own bank account,” adds Yakusheva.
This work paves the way for future research and policy to highlight the dynamic scope of nursing’s economic contribution within health care organizations and systems. “The Nursing Human Capital Value Model will be a standard bearer in workforce policy for years to come,” says JHSON Dean Sarah Szanton.