If it's because it provides more patient care beyond what a nurse can provide in a good system, it might be a valid point. But if it's because the system is fundamentally broken, I'm skeptical that hiring more people will actually fix anything. From personal experience, it will only create a lag that will require the same need for more hires down the road.
I think maybe I'm miscommunicating the point. Yes, if overtime isn't needed people should be sent home. Hospitals agree on this; they don't want to pay overtime if it's not needed.
The issue I'm pointing to is that sometimes it's "needed" because of a bad process, like when there is redundant work. Sometimes it's needed because the system needs slack to compensate for disruptions in system dynamics. Sometimes it's "needed" because "that's how we've always done things." Point being, if it's needed, it should be because it contributes directly to better patient outcomes rather than bad processes.
And that seems to speak to his point exactly. The problem isn't that there isn't enough staff. It's the management is performing badly at scheduling or some other process. The internal problem needs to be fixed before hiring is increased.
The issue is that you hold this as axiom valid across industries. Since your personal experience with IT projects was that process was always issue, therefore when nurses say the hospitals need to hire more nurses, you assume they must be wrong. And you also completely ignore industry specific realities - like there being surge of patients due to covid.
Having excess capacity is necessary and should be a consideration to build a resilient system. It's not about trying to get to 100% efficiency, it's about managing to what you care about and resiliency can be one of those items.
It's hard to adequately staff to that level when the systems/processes are largely unmanaged. By definition, an unmanaged process doesn't know how much nursing gets spent on each element, from patient care to admin work. So it becomes just a guess as to how many you need; when people work in unmanaged processes they tend to feel overwhelmed and the knee-jerk reaction is to hire more people. And often when you add more people to an unmanaged process, the inefficiency can compound, leading you to feel like you need more people to fill the continuing gaps.
Hiring more people can be part of the solution. But you need to understand and manage the process first to get to the right answer.
How do you know the process is not managed? That is fascinating thing here - the argument is not that "I looked at nursing work in hospital and it was unmanaged" it is "I worked on IT project and since it was unmanaged, I am 100% convinced the same situation is in hospitals".
Maybe you meant to respond to someone else, but if you look through the chain of comments, they track back to a post where I was referencing personal experience in healthcare. This included projects redesigning processes where nurses were an integral part of the service.
My position is precisely that "I looked at nursing work in hospital and it was unmanaged." (not in every instance, of course, but certainly in those relevant to this conversation)
If it's because it provides more patient care beyond what a nurse can provide in a good system, it might be a valid point. But if it's because the system is fundamentally broken, I'm skeptical that hiring more people will actually fix anything. From personal experience, it will only create a lag that will require the same need for more hires down the road.