Decreasing the Frequency of Nursing Assessment for Medically Stable Hospitalized Patients

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Nursing Practice
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Prolonged hospitalizations occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic due to staffing shortages and limited post-acute care options.
• Medically stable patients awaiting discharge received standard care interventions, irrespective of their individual needs.
• This situation necessitated optimizing resource allocation and care delivery models within hospitals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement a quality improvement initiative to reduce the frequency of routine nursing assessments for hospitalized patients with delayed discharge.
• To match care assessment frequency with individual patient needs, thereby improving efficiency.
• To reallocate nursing resources effectively during periods of high demand.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement initiative was conducted at a Midwest tertiary care medical center.
• The frequency of nursing assessments, including vital sign monitoring, was reduced to once daily for medically stable patients with delayed discharge.
• The initiative involved a 4-week pilot study.

Main Results:

• During the 4-week pilot, 40 patients were enrolled.
• A total of 960 nursing assessments were eliminated.
• Nurses reallocated approximately 500 hours to other nursing tasks, and no adverse patient outcomes were observed.

Conclusions:

• Decreasing the frequency of nursing assessments for hospitalized patients with delayed discharge appropriately matched care interventions with patient needs.
• This initiative demonstrated that reduced assessment frequency for stable patients is safe and efficient.
• Optimizing nursing assessment frequency can improve resource allocation and nursing workload management in healthcare settings.