Hospital Prep & Recovery Area
Project: Heart and Vascular Intervention Surgery (HVIS) Prep and Recovery Area- Measuring Nurses Workload
Location: Christiana Care Health System, Newark, DE
Overview: This area helps prep and recover patients receiving Heart and Vascular intervention surgery. Patients are coming to the unit to receive cardioversions, and from various labs (electrophysiology, Interventional Radiology, Cardiac Cath). The project started because of low culture of safety scores and staff believing they are understaffed. By observing the unit it has been found that an influx of demand comes in the afternoon and at various times of the day staff are pulled from the prep to recovery area or vice versa. The goal is to have the model be used to measure the workload of the nurses to determine the strain on the system and test possible solutions.
The simulation currently focuses on the recovery area and includes logic on:
Bed selection- Patients will go to the nurse area with the least workload, and prefer the designated area i.e. overnight.
One-on-One Nurse tasks- Some tasks will require the nurse’s attention immediately and prevent them from seeing other patients
Assessment Tasks- During the patient stay the patient has to be checked on a routine basis i.e. 2 times per hour, but is not seen as a priority
Changing Acuity levels- The patients acuity level declines the longer the stay on the unit and the patient will require less time from the nurse.
Future Work: This project is still in progress and the plan in the future is to finalize the work required for each patient type, and be able to use this model to determine if staffing levels are appropriate or changes can be made to the process, such as removing the overnight area, changing the labs schedule, or having the same care team following the patient from prep to recovery.
Let me know if you have any questions
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