About HONEST Study
Overview
HONEST is a research project funded by European Uninon’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Programme. The HONEST project aims to facilitate the Swiss hospitals’ staff budget transparency and optimize investments in health systems through a better understanding of the association between nurse and physician wages and patient safety outcomes.
The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of a well-trained and stable healthcare workforce. A satisfactory wage is essential in job-seeking behaviour and is vital in keeping hospital workers in their current positions. At the same moment, in Switzerland, healthcare costs per capita are the second-highest globally. More than 50% of this money goes to hospitals, where one of the leading cost categories is professional remuneration.
The HONEST project offers a new way to comprehend the nurse and physician wage mechanism in hospitals, which can improve patient safety in its final effect. Such knowledge is necessary for enhancing the wage system in Swiss hospitals, which would be satisfactory and cost-effective in the long term.
The Research Project
The HONEST research project is scheduled to run for a period of two years (Feb 2022 – Feb 2024) and will analyze the Swiss national data from the years 2014-2020. The study contains three main areas of interest.
- Physician and nurse wage drivers in Swiss hospitals, including question of gender pay gap.
- The association between physician and nurse wages and patient safety.
- Cost-effectiveness and budget impact of hospitals’ investments in nurses’ and physicians’ wages.
healthcare force and help to update the gender inequality in the Swiss healthcare labor market. From the international perspective, HONEST
addresses the Sustainable Development Goals, healthcare objective and gender equality, set by the United Nations General Assembly.
Financing
