Patient Acuity

What is patient acuity? Patient Acuity is the measurement of the intensity of nursing care required by a patient.

Why is patient acuity important? Assigning the number of nurses needed per shift based merely on the number of patients may not be in the best interests of patient safety for example patients may range from requiring minimal care on the day they are being discharged to needing a dedicated nurse 24/7 in intensive care.

What is acuity based staffing? Acuity based staffing allocates resources based on patients’ needs, rather than the more traditional method of assigning resources based on patient numbers. With automated acuity based staffing solutions you can be 100% sure that you are making the best possible use of your workforce to ensure patient safety and care by optimising your nursing rosters and assignments with patients’ dependency needs. Acuity based staffing allows you to achieve quality patient outcomes, more efficient employee scheduling, reduced costs and increased employee satisfaction and retention.

• Optimise your nursing schedules with patients’ needs.
• Track patient dependency levels across each ward using accredited tools such as; the Shelford acuity tool, NICE, RAFAELA, and NHPPD or alternatively using a custom approach.
• Assess the level of care required by each patient and schedule staff accordingly – taking into account the required skills and experience.
• Match required nursing FTE vs actual rostered FTE hours.
• Identify how many staff are required in each of your wards/departments, on a daily basis, to ensure that the best level of care is delivered to your patients.
• Assist ward managers to identify wards that require revised staffing levels; by visually displaying any over or under staffing and enabling them to make adjustments.
• Monitor patient dependency levels and generate staff to patient assignments based on these levels.

Our acuity based staffing solution helps you achieve better patient outcomes, increased employee satisfaction, more efficient employee scheduling and cost savings. With Softworks Patient Acuity you can be sure you’re making the best possible use of your workforce to ensure patient safety and care. If you would like a demo of Softworks Patient Acuity contact us today and we’ll organise one at a time that suits you!