The utilization of a patient classification system to improve nursing effectiveness.

Abstract

The patient classification system presented here is a tool to manage and plan nursing staff allocation in accordance with nursing care needs. This case study has an ecologic analytical design and its main purpose is to investigate how the improvement of nursing staff management efficiency can decrease adverse patient outcomes. Data were collected retrospectively in one hospital and differences between medical, surgical and orthopedic units are discussed. The main determinants of patient outcomes were three management variables: nursing care hours needed (NCHN), staffing variance (SV) combined with nursing care utilization rate (NCUR) and some proxy measures of need, like age of patient, and month of observation. The most important result of this study was the demonstration of an effective correlation between nursing care management and patient outcomes variables.