2015 Volume 15 Issue 4 Pages 256-260
To develop a conceptual model for nursing staff resource management, we connected Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) codes with the level of need for nursing care in acute-care hospitals, and thereby ascertained changes in the level of need for nursing care for a particular disease treated by particular interventions. Data on DPC codes and the levels of need for nursing in patients hospitalized in a surgical ward of an acute-care hospital (≥500 beds), and those on the clinical ladder levels of nurses working in the same ward were collected in October 2010. The mean scores of the level of need for nursing care by ICD disease (A score) and by the presence/absence of surgical intervention (B score) were calculated in order to examine their time-course changes. The first day of hospitalization was designated as day 0. Data for one common disease (malignant gastric tumor) were extracted into graphs showing changes in the A and B scores over time period. In addition, changes in the level of need for nursing care and changes in the nursing power score (ladder level × number of nurses) in the surgical department were examined. Our results suggest that examining changes in the level of need for nursing care after removing the influence of variance enables the need for nursing care to be more accurately predicted. Furthermore, nursing power declined on Saturdays and Sundays over the 1-month period, suggesting the need for a flexible staffing system that can respond to sudden increases in the admittance of patients in serious condition.
