To the nurse writing about Acuity levels, I feel your frustration. This is a big reason I left clinical nursing to obtain a career in Healthcare Informatics. I do not worry about our nurse to patient ratio, acuity levels, or about working extra and not getting paid. In Healthcare Informatics, I handle policies, statistics, computer programs, and machines. I miss the clinical nursing. However with clinical nursing I was missing time with my family, with my health, and with my sanity. Now I feel better about myself and the work I am doing to help patients in a different way.
Using higher acuity as a talking point for our need for lower nurse:patient ratios has had no effect. I am totally frustrated, as are the nurses on my unit, on how to get the point across to administration. We are unable to provide the total amount of care our patients need.
We use HPPD, hours per patient day, to set up our allocation tables. And even though my Telemetry unit is at 8.35 HPPD and another unit may be at 7.5; we all end up with a 1:5 nurse patient ratio.
Looking for a way to assign acuity levels to the patients doesn’t seem to hold much impact. As I researched this, I found articles that found inconsistent results with changing ratios to acuity, with inconsistent results in outcomes.
So where do I go from here? Patients are barely getting the attention they need……..the patients are sicker, older, heavier, more are diabetic…..nurses can only find time to complete the tasks and not much more…nurses are so frustrated, they are looking for jobs elsewhere?
Tags:Healthcare Informatics Employment, Healthcare Informatics Patient Acuity Levels, Healthcare Informatics Resources, Healthcare Online Education Consultant, Online Instructor-Led Healthcare Informatics Courses
The Importance of Health Assessment, comment
The quantity and quality of nursing charting can be improved by using Computer On Wheels, or an electronic hand-held or similar device. Your health assessment skills will definitely take a turn for the better.
As a seasoned nurse I think I perform a pretty good assessment. However, reading the first four chapters of our textbook and doing the first lab exercise has reminded me about a basic concept that in our fast pace world we tend to loose sight of. That is the concept asking open ended and non-judgmental questions and then listening to the answers and asking follow up questions. Today’s healthcare environment doesn’t allow for much time but I realize I can better utilize the time I have by improving my assessment skills of asking questions and listening more to the answers I receive.
Tags:Health Care Informatics Resources Assessment, Healthcare Informatics Resources Computers On Wheels, Healthcare Online Education Consultant, Online Healthcare Informatics Courses
Posted in Electronic Medical Record, Health Assessment | 5 Comments »
A cool hangout area on our patio
Guest post written by Nicole Simmons
My roommates and I have been getting along really well together since we moved in together. We all knew each other from college and just happened to be moving to the same place after for work so it really worked out perfectly! I’m excited for this warm weather that’s coming up and I think that will make us hang out a little bit more outside. But first we have to do a little makeover for our patio area.
There are some old plastic patio chairs that are proabbly almsot as old as we are sitting out in our patio area and we’ve decided to buy some nicer stuff that will make us want to actually use that space. I used our get.wildblue.com internet to find some ideas for decorating that would make the area mroe inviting and a reflection fo our design tastes.
I found some really cute ideas, including putting some curtains up outside as another way to block the sun. We’ve picked out some cute pieces of furniture and maybe even am umbrella. I think this is going to be a great little area for us to hang out in!
Tags:Healthcare Informatics Internet, Healthcare Informatics Resources