I work in a small community hospital with a high volume ER. Prior to this I have always worked in large teaching hospitals. One of my biggest complaints about this new ER is that we have to "GRASP" for everything we do for each patient which is calculated in minutes of time needed to care for each patient. This takes an amazing amount of time and paperwork.

This is all in an effort for us to justify our staffing to administration. It has become so important that it seems that it is all anyone ever cares about...that we grasped correctly! No one even seems to care about how well you care for the patients...just make sure you account for all minutes and charges correctly.

I would like to know how many other ER's have similar ways to justify their staffing needs? Does anyone have any suggestions for better ways for this hospital to justify the staffing numbers?

Howdy yall

from deep in the heart of texas

That all sounds kind of normal in these days and times. Where administration, processes all types of data breakdowns. Patient satixfaction surveys, productive hours, length of stay, acuity, disposition, mode of arrival, admits, obs, transfers etc. They are breaking everything down into surveys so they can vigure out hoe to get you to more with less. This is a sign of the times everywhere. Its is all productivity related, cost efective related. etc. we are all stuck with this. wheteher its a large or small ER. Just that in a larger one you just wont see it ir feel it as much due to the larger number of layers between you and the top of rhe pile.

doo wah ditty

Pt classification (sometimes known as Grasp) and staffing variances are a JCAHO requirement. It isn't fun but its necessary to get accredited.

Much like traumanurse is on the fence about a lot of things (hint hint) i am on the fence about GRASP. Yeah it sucks. THere is nothing like adding more paper work to an already busy place to muck up your continuity of care. Eventhough this is a JCAHO regulation, is there another way to do it that doesn't involve nurses? I mean, don't we justify ourselves enough by the hours of charting patient care? It just seems like management is "double-dipping" when they expect us to grasp for care already perfromed. Give me a break, if they want to know if our time is well spent read the damn chart, it's all there!!! :

Much like traumanurse is on the fence about a lot of things (hint hint) i am on the fence about GRASP. Yeah it sucks. THere is nothing like adding more paper work to an already busy place to muck up your continuity of care. Eventhough this is a JCAHO regulation, is there another way to do it that doesn't involve nurses? I mean, don't we justify ourselves enough by the hours of charting patient care? It just seems like management is "double-dipping" when they expect us to grasp for care already perfromed. Give me a break, if they want to know if our time is well spent read the damn chart, it's all there!!! :