Hospital-acquired pressure injury improvement: Estimating financial benefit from nursing human capital.

BACKGROUND

Nurses are one of the most recognized and trusted professions in the world. However, most often, organizations have limited capacity for evaluating the financial benefit of nursing care, leaving the system and consumer perception of nursing as merely a cost center and not a value proposition.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is: (a) to explore nursing financial benefit using the Nursing Human Capital Model (Yakusheva et al., 2024) with a real-world example, and (b) to create a method for estimating the economic impact of nursing quality using hospital-acquired pressure injury (HAPI).

METHODS

Using patient-level HAPI data and a literature-based methodology, we analyzed changes in the volume and cost of HAPI over fiscal years 2021 to 2025. Modeled HAPI costs increased by 31.2% from FY23 ($4,696,225) to FY24 ($6,163,343); however, FY24 costs remained 45.3% below the FY21 baseline of $11,268,277. Costs subsequently declined to $1,789,649 in FY25, representing an 84.1% reduction from FY21.

DISCUSSION: Our analysis demonstrated potentially significant cost avoidance in HAPI and reinforced the economic impact of nursing, including its value proposition.

CONCLUSION

Overall, our results reflect the significant positive improvements in patient outcomes, specifically HAPI, through nursing human capital investment.