05 Oct API Healthcare introduces Acuality Patient Classification System
API Healthcare, a provider of human capital management solutions to the healthcare industry, announced the general availability of the Acuality Patient Classification System, which allows hospitals to quickly assess patient care requirements and make appropriate future staffing assignments based on patient acuity levels. The evidence-based system can enable hospitals to predict staffing requirements helping to ensure optimal skill mix, minimize overtime and improve patient outcomes.
Fully integrated with API Healthcare’s suite of human capital management solutions, Acuality analyzes each department’s clinical workload and, based on patient needs, identifies the most effective combination of staff credentials and skill mix for the upcoming shift. Staffing recommendations are sent directly to API Healthcare’s ActiveStaffer® staffing and scheduling system, enabling nurse managers to compare recommended staff to scheduled staff and make adjustments. As a result, each nurse is assigned the optimal number of patients based on current patient acuity levels, workload capacity and required patient care, helping to ensure equitability in patient assignments.
In a major study of surgical patients conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, the risk of patient mortality within 30 days of admission increased by an average of 7 percent for each additional patient assigned to a nurse, and inadequate staffing was found to be a contributing factor in 24 percent of all unanticipated events that resulted in patient death, injury or permanent loss of function. The same study concluded that a higher proportion of hours of registered nursing care per day are associated with better outcomes for those who are hospitalized and that those outcomes can result in significant cost-savings.
“With more than 10 states enacting safe nurse staffing standards and regulations proposed at the national level, hospitals need an efficient and accurate way to manage staffing needs,” added Fingado. “The integrated capabilities of Acuality coupled with our staff scheduling solution allow API Healthcare to deliver a reduction of costs, better employee satisfaction and an opportunity to increase quality of care.”