Exploratory Study on the Nursing Care Classification System in Public Hospitals

Abstract：Objective To explore the method for nursing care classification standard based on different conditions and activities of daily living (ADL).Methods Investigating inpatients from 10 common adult wards in Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Surgery in a tertiary teaching hospital in Jiangsu Province from May to December,2015.The Barthel index and acute physiology and chronic health evaluations Ⅱ (APACHE Ⅱ) were used to evaluate their ADL and severity of illness,and the self-designed direct nursing hour scale was applied to record the direct nursing time needed by patients in 24h.Nursing class was defined according to different conditions and ADL and to the difference of patients' need of direct nursing time in 24h.Results 570 patients were investigated in total,and 551 effective questionnaires were collected with an effective return rate of 96.67％.4 new nursing classes were formed according to severity of different diseases.Patients' ADL and the difference of patients' needed direct nursing time in 24h.Conclusion Patients can be classified into different conditions and ADL by the direct nursing time they need.Such a new method is more objective and convenient than usual nursing grading used previously,and is helpful for guiding human resources allocation and cost accounting.