What is a client acuity report?

A client acuity report is basically a simple breakdown of how sick, or how nursing "heavy" the patients on the unit are. Our patient's used to be assigned a number, 1-5, in the middle of each shift. There was one column for RNs and one for aides. 1 was low acuity, 5 was high acuity.

For RN's, a low acuity patient would be one with all PO meds, no wound treatments, stable and nearly ready for discharge. A high acuity patient would be one who has IV meds, dressing changes, trach care/suctioning, tube feeds, needs frequent assessments and vitals, etc.

For aides, a low acuity patient would be one who can ambulate, toilet, bathe and eat independantly. A high acuity patient would be total care.

The acuity report is used to determine how many staff are needed for the next shift, as well as how to best group assignments so that no one nurse is overloaded.

I think you're answer is correct. Quality improvement is aimed at reducing poor and unwanted outcomes, so med errors, falls and infection are definately included. Actually if a fall or med error occurs then an incident report needs to be filled out. So I'm back and forth on that one. The number of incident reports per month is definately measureable, and a reduction in the number of reports would indicate improvement. However, just counting the incident reports does not give a picture of what the problems are, or how they are improving. I think you could make a good case for leaving it out.

Thank you for taking your time to write such a detailed and thorough reply. I really appreciate that. I have a much better understanding now. Thanks a lot =]