Johnsons Behavioral Model

[Daisy Marie]

Hello,

The hospital I work for uses the Johnsons Behavioral Model to rate our patient's acuities. I would like feedback from those who like this model as I do. Our hospital is sufering from the nursing shortage, we have mandatroy overtimes on a daily basis, (all shifts.) A team of administrators have gathered to see if they can manipulate this acuity model so that they can lower the acuities and provide less staff, thus lowering the overtimes. Of course they have not included a level of care nurse into their "pow wow's" I work at a place where staff and patients can get hurt if we are not adequately staffed. I am discouraged by what I see. I have considered leaving nursing sooo many times. This delema makes me sick, these folks leave at 5 pm every day and have weekends and holidays off! I believe that "Level of care staff" must be involved in making acuity decisions. Am I wrong? Who is CRIPA and can they help?

[purplemania, BSN, RN]

I don't know about the acuity scale, but SURELY your facility has a risk management dept. to which you can voice your concerns. Being penny wise and pound foolish is not smart. Saving on salaries and paying for lawsuits is dumb.

[sjoe]

"A team of administrators have gathered to see if they can manipulate this acuity model so that they can lower the acuities and provide less staff, thus lowering the overtimes."

EXCEPT that if they are successful in lowering acuities, their next step will be to reduce the nursing staff numbers and you STILL will have the same problem of mandatory overtime.

[Daisy Marie]

Hi Ya'll,

Thank you for your feedback. I would like to respond to Purplemania first. You are so right when you wrote"Being penny wise and pound foolish is not smart. Saving on salaries and paying for lawsuits is dumb." What is so sad about the State agency that I work for is that we do not have a "Risk Management Team" This team is being led by some of the "Top administrators" Our only hope is that licencing has supported our system. I work in a place that is in the "Dark ages" or so it seems. I live in a small town, the best jobs are at the State Hospital, and that is not saying much.

In response to sjoe. "EXCEPT that if they are successful in lowering acuities, their next step will be to reduce the nursing staff numbers and you STILL will have the same problem of mandatory overtime." This is true, I wonder if this thought has crossed their minds. Thank you for the input.

DM

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