NUR 4590 – Deliverable 5 – Staffing Justification Email Staffing Based On Patient Acuity Level
| Shift Assignments | RN 1 | RN 2 | RN 3 | RN 4 | RN 5 | LPN 1 | LPN 2 | CNA 1 | CNA 2 |
| Acuity Level 1 Clients | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1 | |||
| Acuity Level 2 Clients | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||||
| Acuity Level 3 Clients | 4 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 2 | ||||
| Acuity Level 4 Clients | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 | |||||
| Total Acuity | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 16 | 14 |
To the Nurse Manager
The acuity assignment sheet that I have attached above involves how the incoming nursing professionals will be assigned various patients based on their acuity levels. The nursing professionals to whom the patients are assigned belong to different categories based on their level of education and training, which include Certified Nurse Assistants (CNAs), Licensed Practice Nurses (LPNs), and Registered Nurses (RNs) (Restrepo et al., 2020). In this case, there are 30 patients with different acuity levels, five RNs, two CNAs, and two LPNs. These nursing professionals are scheduled to work in a 12-hour shift. According to the patients available, six patients are in acuity level one, eight patients belong to acuity level two, nine patients are in acuity level three, and seven are in acuity level four. In this case, patients in acuity level one have stable health conditions, those in acuity level two are at a moderate risk, acuity level three patients have complex health issues, and those in the fourth acuity level are at a high risk.
NUR 4590 – Deliverable 5 – Staffing Justification Email
Rationale for the Staffing
When assigning patients to nursing professionals based on their acuity levels, the education and training level of nurses have to be considered. It is inappropriate to assign some patients to particular nurses since it would be a challenging task for nursing professionals to handle such patients. For example, it is inappropriate for patients in the fourth acuity level to be assigned to the LPNs (Restrepo et al., 2020). Therefore, based on the assignment, I assigned patients in the first and second acuity levels to the LPNs at a ratio of 1:5, whereby each LPN is supposed to serve five patients. The patients assigned to the LPNs are those with stable and moderate risk. Besides, the RNs were assigned patients with complex health issues and those at high risk. These involved the patients in the third and fourth acuity levels. Due to the complexity of the health conditions of these patients, they should be assigned to the RNs in the ratio of 1:3, whereby each RN serves at most five patients. This ratio will also enable the RNs to give support to the LPNs when necessary. Lastly, the CNAs will assist the RNs in handling patients in the third and fourth acuity levels.