Patient Acuity (workload) Feature: The Underrated Tool That Could Help Your Providers Avoid Burnout

In a hospital setting, not all patients are equal. Some require more “work” and time with providers than others. For example, new patients must be admitted and evaluated, collecting their history and pain symptoms. This can be more daily work than rounding on an existing patient. We call this patient acuity, a term used in the clinical space to describe how much work a new patient will require.

The Way It Works

Remember how I said some patients require more work than others? You’re probably wondering how the software determines how (and how much) to weigh these new patients. The new patients will always be more work since the provider will need to meet with them, assess, document, chart, determine which level of H&P they will be, etc.

For example, every “regular” patient is 1. An ICU patient who will be more work (or a new patient coming from the ER) can be weighed as a 1.5 since a provider may need to spend 60 or more minutes with them. Conversely, an OBS patient could be weighed as a 0.5, and a provider may only need to see them for five minutes.

Weighing is subjective to every hospital, but the concept is still the same. The hospitals we work with who are using Assign tell us how they would like to weigh their patients, and we create it based on the value in the ADT feed.

More than Just Patient Acuity

If you don’t have an automated patient distribution solution, how could you manually account for workload balancing without weighing?

You can’t, hence why hospitals can’t do this.

Doing it manually on a spreadsheet means you also can’t account for geography because the process is too time-consuming. They are so busy making the list and trying to get it out the door that it’s out of the question to manually try to remember or look up which areas of the hospital a provider will be in and try to keep them in only one location.

Continuity of care and geography within your daily rounding list is important, not just for physicians, but for patients too.

In this  study at a large tertiary care medical center with a hospitalist program caring for patients scattered in 4 buildings and 16 floors, “A majority of physicians (87%) thought that geography had a positive impact on the overall quality of care. Respondents reported that they felt that geography increased time spent with patient/caregivers to discuss plan of care (p < 0.001); improved communication with nurses (p = 0.0009); and increased sense of teamwork with nurses/case managers (p < 0.001).

Why Does This Matter To Me?

A solution that weighs your patients can reduce stress, avoid overworking your providers, increase productivity, and decrease burnout. The post-pandemic world has strained the healthcare system, driving providers to go part-time or quit altogether.

According to The National Library of Medicine, “Excessive workload and an unfavorable work environment contribute to physician burnout.³⁷ Long working hours, high patient volumes, administrative tasks, and limited control over work schedules amplify stress levels among physicians.”

Last Words

Weighing patient acuity is important in ensuring every provider has the most balanced workload possible. It is incredibly hard to do this if you’re still making your morning list manually. Chances are, if you’re still doing that manually, you can’t account for geography either, which has been shown to impact providers positively.

Want to learn more on how Assign is creating safer hospitals for patients? Check out this article on how medaptus decreased LOS and improves patient throughput.