The Queensland Emergency Nursing Workforce Tool: A prototype for informing and standardising nursing workforce projections

SummaryWe describe the development of the Queensland Emergency Nursing Workforce Tool. Obtaining existing information from elsewhere in Australia, we formed an expert working group to create a method and tool that has demonstrated initial internal validity in Queensland. Using Australasian Triage Scale data as the foundation source to inform core staffing requirements, the tool also acknowledges Fixed staffing needs, Short Stay Unit (SSU) and other miscellaneous workforce that collectively make up the total nursing workforce requirements of an Emergency Department (ED). The tool provides a transparent and consistent presentation format to assist in benchmarking and contrasting staffing needs across and between various EDs. The authors showcase this tool to the Australian audience in the hope that further correspondence and feedback may lead to the development of a national ED nursing workforce tool.