¿Qué es Nursing Acuity?

There is currently a strong awareness of quality. The word quality comes from the Latin qualitate and is used in various daily situations, like the quality of a product we acquire, the quality of service provided, or treatment, for instance. It has been gaining increasing importance in the context of health services. Its importance lies in the fact that it serves both the citizen, considered individually, and also health professionals and managers. (DGS, 2015).

Quality in the provision of health services and control of management and planning in health institutions is a key factor for an efficient hospital administration that seeks to meet their patients’ needs. This should be taken as the main goal. That is, to seek to meet the needs, expectations and achieve a high level of satisfaction from the patients with the care provided to them. This is where the adoption of a management system becomes a strategic decision for organizations.

Within this context, arises the concept of Nursing Acuity. It’s actually very simple: the possibility of being able to classify the time/dedication needs of specific nursing acts for each patient so that, at least in the following shift, the HR allocated to each ward are adjusted with greater acuity.

Each patient may range from different levels of acuity depending on diagnosis, comorbidities, wounds, nervous status etc.

This means that it is a methodology that organizes all nursing operations. It also means the team and necessary tools are planned according to the procedures to be performed or the patients’ acuity levels. These can vary depending on the diagnosis, co-morbidities, wounds, nervous state, etc. The main goal is to guarantee precision and cohesion between the nursing services. This is possible by providing relevant information on a single screen that helps the medical team leader decide where nursing staff should be allocated.

The patients’ acuity adjusts to the total acuity level of the current ward for the daily operational planning and finds balance to ensure the patient’s safety between the shift change, depending on their needs. Their classification is based on the empirical data from the staff’s knowledge of each patient. It is then expected that health care adapts to the needs and expectations of the citizen and that there’s the best possible performance.

Nursing Acuity provides relevant information on a single screen that helps the medical team leader decide where nursing staff should be allocated.

For this fundamental need to ensure patient safety, SISQUAL has developed a module called Nursing Acuity, which streamlines nursing processes, eliminates manual tasks and risks in patient care, inserted in different levels of acuity and attention. As a manager of a health institution or hospital, be ready to have the best care based on the level of risk, needs, and skills of the medical and nursing staff that each person needs.