Study to Identify and Analyze the Effects of Category and Frequency Sampling on the Reporting of Total Nursing Care Hour Requirements.

摘要

The impact of patient categorization and frequency sampling on the accurate reporting of the number of nursing care hours needed for a given group of patients was demonstrated in this study. The results of this study further corroborated the earlier NCHSS findings of Sherrod, Rauch and Twist (1981). Overall, the principal findings of the study supported the premise that the sampling frequency of acuity data could be as infrequently as every Wednesday. However, the findings did not support the premise that sampling could be as infrequent as once a month. In general, this finding was shown to have important implications for redefining the frequency of sampling WMSN acuity data at Womack Army Community Hospital. This was a retrospective inquiry analyzing the database collected over a 422 day period involving 79,677 cases. Patients admitted to Womack Army Community Hospital during the period of August 4, 1987 through September 29, 1988 were used for the study. Acuity data for the study was collected by professional nurses on a daily basis and entered into the Datapoint terminals. Analysis was conducted on the total sample of patient records, and individually, for six clinical areas at WACH: medical/surgical, obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatric, newborn nursery, pediatrics and critical care for the 422 day period. Patient acuity data was provided by registration number and clinical service only, so the ethical rights of the patient were protected. The unit of analysis used was day of care.