Computerization of Nurse Staffing and Scheduling according to Patient Classification

Park, Jang Ho; Park, Hyeoun Ae; Cho, Hyon; Choi, Yong Sun

Abstract

Even though Korean medical law stipulates that number of patients attended by a nurse is 2.5 for hospitalization and 30 for ambulatory care, the number of patients cared by a nurse per day is much greater than the standard prescribed by the medical law. Current nursing productivity of nurses is not desirable unless the quality of care considered. Moreover, nursing manpower staffing based on neither current nurses' productivity nor standard of medical law cannot respond properly to dynamic situation of the medical services. As for the nurse scheduling, the critical problem of it in the hospital is determining the day-to-day shift assignments for each nurse for the specified period in a way that satisfies the given requirements of the hospital. Nurse scheduling, however, involves many factors and requirements, manual scheduling requires much time and effort to produce an adequate schedule. Under these backgrounds, the necessity of more efficient management of nursing manpower occupying 1/3 of total hospital workers has been recognized by many nursing administrators. This study was performed to develop a system computerizing nurse staffing and scheduling based on the patient classification. As a preliminary step for the system development, nursing workload in a secondary hospital was measured from Sep. to Oct. 1994. On the grounds of this result, computerization of nurse staffing and scheduling was proceeded with three options. First one is based on the current medical law. Second one is based on the assigned number of nursing staff. And the last is based on the request by patient classification. Computer languages used in this study were MS Visual Basic 3.0 for the staffing and Access 2.0 for the scheduling, respectively. Prospective users may operate this system easily because icons and mouse are used for easier graphic user interface and reducing the need for typing efforts. This system can help nurse administrators manage nursing manpower efficiently and nurses develop quick and easy schedule generation and allow more time for the patient care.