Acuity Scales or Assessments?

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Hi. I was hoping to get some ideas about acuity measurements in use. Are any of you using tools on your units to measure acuity? I have heard there are some hospitals using scales with ratings for different areas such as amount of medications, current psychosis, etc. We currently "measure" acuity only by the number of constant observations. It has been clear for some time that this is really no indication of acuity. The hospital has no other way of measuring so I am trying to develop something. Lit searches generate scales for ICUs but I have found little for psych. Can anyone give me an idea of what you are using and the benefits/drawbacks? Thanks!

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Specializes in mental health; hangover remedies.

All I've seen in this regard is subjective measurement on a 1 -5 scale or something and staff just 'guesstimate".

There's another thread on the same topic... somewhere here in psychiatric nursing forum...

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Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

There's an anxiety rating scale questionnaire I used in the olden days--the patient filled it out at the beginning of the shift (or I read the questions and they answered) if they were capable of doing it...I can't remember what it was called though.

I just did a http://www.google.com search on "psychiatric rating scales" and there are oodles of sites there--maybe one would help you.

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