Chief Financial Officers at hospitals around the country have a tall order facing them in 2013.

First, they must tackle an incredible shortage of nurses and doctors — a condition that will only worsen as time goes on. (In fact, some estimate that the shortage of nurses will be as high as 800,000 and the physician shortage as high as 200,000 by 2020, according to HealthLeadersMedia.com.) The short supply of nurses and doctors cannot keep up with the demand of a high patient influx, pushing costs higher and higher for hospitals.

And on top of this, with this caretaker shortage comes overworked employees who are stressed and run a serious risk of burnout. It’s a vicious cycle: The more overworked and stressed nurses and doctors are due to the shortage, the more quality care and employee satisfaction is impacted, which only serves to make the problem worse — and, push costs even higher.

Secondly, CFOs must face the issue of uncertain funding and reimbursements that rely upon falling in the upper quartile of HCAHPS scores. Of course, this issue is further complicated, as it relies heavily upon the experience and quality care delivery of short-staffed nurses and physicians with limited resources, combined with readmissions penalties.

With the flipping of the calendar, however, comes the drive to strive to be better and accomplish new things. CFOs, the entire CSuite and administration staff are challenged to be innovative with their cost-saving measures and process improvements– perhaps through cultural changes that can reduce stressors for the hospital staff, and implement and invest in new patient experience upgrades that can impact the experience and lead to patient retention and downstream revenue.