Patient Acuity Generally Explained for Students (Easy Guide)
This type of question evaluates analytical and critical thinking skills.
What This Question Is About
This question relates to patient acuity generally and requires a structured academic response.
How to Approach This Question
Use appropriate theories and support your answer with clear reasoning.
Key Explanation
This topic involves patient acuity generally. A strong answer should include explanation, application, and examples.
Original Question
Patient acuity is generally defined as a measurement of intensity of nursing care needed by a patient (Patient Safe Staffing.org, 2020). Before each shift change, the charge nurse gets an update on the patients on the unit: any changes to their care, any tests they may have undergone during that shift. If the patient was new admit during that particular shift, then the charge must get top to bottom info on that patient. Sometimes, we as charge nurses do not have the time to properly assess the acuity of the patients we are assigning out to nurses that next shift when we ourselves have had our own patient load. I would like to propose an acuity tool for the charge nurse to pass along to her nurses at the beginning of each shift, so that upon doing their patient assessment, they can fill it out and turn it in when they do updates with the charge later. This tool can be used by the charge to then judge the acuity of patients to assign a fair patient load to each of the nurses the following shift. Not properly assessing the acuity of the patients leaves some nurses having 3 total care patients and only 1 that is independent of ADLS, while others have all 4 independent. This can make for a very difficult shift for that one nurse! I do understand that sometimes an uneven load is inevitable, however, if we do our best to report changes and level of care to the charge nurses, I believe we could work together to reduce some of the stress load. Question what knowledge can you draw from the article
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