Acuality Patient Classification System from API Healthcare

Oct 3 2009

API Healthcare, the leading provider of human capital management solutions to the healthcare industry, today 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.

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 the introduction of Acuality, API Healthcare continues its rapid pace of product innovations, each of which addresses the varied issues faced by today’s healthcare organizations,” said J.P. Fingado, president and chief executive officer of API Healthcare. “When making patient assignments, Acuality allows hospitals to enhance safety by verifying that each nurse has a manageable patient load prior to the start of a shift. In addition, by providing greater fairness in staffing, Acuality also promotes increased nurse satisfaction, which leads to improved morale and reduced turnover.”

When formulating patient acuity, Acuality takes eight categories of patient needs into account, including cognitive, self-care, emotional, comfort/pain, family, treatment, patient education and transition, and processes the data through a complex statistical engine. Easy to use graphical dashboards enable nurse managers to access current patient and unit acuity levels to ensure optimal staffing. The system also provides detailed staffing reports as well as ongoing monitoring of reliability and validity statistics.

“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.”

API Healthcare will demonstrate the new Acuality system at the 2009 National Magnet Conference in Louisville, Ky., from October 1-3 at booth #306.

 http://www.apihealthcare.com/