Management and Education Services for Healthcare (MESH): Patient Classification and Staffing System
Management and Education Services for Healthcare (MESH) is a patient- and family-centered acuity classification and staffing system designed to identify what makes each patient's care unique.
Patient Classification and Staffing System Module
The Patient Classification and Staffing System (PCSS) module is one of four modules available in the MESH system. The screenshots below are taken directly from the PCSS module.
Clients choose either an eight- or 12-hour model of care. The following example is an eight-hour model of care. The four components of the PCSS module comprise one screen in the system but have been broken up into the component parts for explicatory purposes.
Census Broken Into Two Areas: Projected and Actual
Projected census information is completed by the prior shift. Day shift projects for PMs, PMs projects for Nocs, and Nocs projects for days. Included in these numbers are anticipated admissions or discharges for the shift which must be assigned an acuity and entered in the appropriate classification. This information drives the staffing hours in the Staff section below and is used to determine staffing plans for the next shift. The admission and discharge information on the far right side of the screen is used to calculate census variability for each shift. The actual census information is entered at the end of each shift based upon what transpired during the shift, as patient acuity can change throughout the shift.
Staff
Based on the census and the acuity data, the software calculates the number of staff hours needed by staff type for the projected and actuals. This information is specific to direct care hour calculations. Targets are created for each unique unit using the following: Average census, acuity, staffing skill mix and experience level of staff, percentage of care dedicated to each shift, and hours per patient day.
Clients enter their staffing information in hours under each staff type and the software calculates if the unit will be overstaffed or understaffed for the shift. Clients can set up unit specific thresholds for staffing which will mandate the person entering data to write a brief note explaining the staffing pattern for the shift (see Shift Notes below).
Actual Indirect
The software captures indirect cares provided on each shift. These values are pulled out of the direct care calculation and placed in the worked hour calculations.
Shift Notes
Shift Notes allows the person responsible for making shift-by-shift staffing decisions to document staffing decisions. The software includes a variety of reports – 19 in total, which includes benchmarking information specific to the facility, health care systems and MESH software clients.
