Nursing Acuity Assessment Statement

APPENDIX A

Casandra Giron & Kaye Castro

POLICY TITLE:

Implementing an acuity assessment tool for patient care prioritization.

POLICY PURPOSE:

To provide a high quality of care where patients needs are met consistently, as well as benefiting nurse workload and patient assignments.

POLICY STATEMENT:

Acuity assessed at the start and end of a shift using an acuity tool enables a nurse to accurately prioritize patient care based on patient acuity score. Completing acuity scores identifies patient current needs and illness severity, allowing nurses to plan cares that meet the patient’s requirements during the shift.

RATIONALE:

Based on the literature research, attaining acuity scores promoted improvements in the delivery of care, workload of a

The nurse must take five minutes at most to complete the MSAAT and has to make sure everything is complete for accurate long-term rehabilitation services, and onset severity (e.g., extent of an inflammatory process).” (Thomasos et al., 2015, p.40).

Medical-surgical: Nursing speciality in the hospital caring for adult patient with various diagnosis (What is Medical-Surgical Nursing?, 2017).

MSAAT: Abbreviation for “Medical-Surgical Acuity Assessment Tool” which is a tool developed by Casandra and Kaye in replacement of the TEAMS acuity tool. It is a modified and improved version of TEAMS.

TEAMS: Abbreviation for “treatment, education, activities of daily living, medications, and vital signs” (Thomasos et al., 2015, p.42). It is a tool that was used by nurses to measure patient acuity in a “medical-telemetry unit of a 150-bed community hospital in the Southeast” (Thomasos et al., 2015, p.39).

RESPONSIBILITIES:

In order for this policy to be properly implemented in a medical-surgical unit, the hospital must be in agreement to this evidence-based proposal. The nurses are responsible to abide by this policy, complete the MSAAT during their shift and document their findings on their computer system. The nurse managers are responsible in ensuring that the MSAAT criteria are met and that the scores are accurate by conducting regular patient reviews and nurse