Victoria Socha

DocwireNews

Boston&mdash;At a large dialysis provider, nurses are assigned to have in-person assessment of patients identified as high risk for poor outcomes. The care coordination unit makes the assignments utilizing assessments made during the patient&rsquo;s regularly scheduled dialysis treatments; the assessments serve as additional check-in on the patient&rsquo;s health and well-being. Many hours of work each week are required to identify which patients should be scheduled for the in-person assessment.Tommy Blanchard, PhD, and colleagues at Fresenius Medical Care North American have developed an algorithm to automate the nurse schedule. They outlined the algorithm during a poster session at the NKF Spring Clinical Meetings in a poster titled Algorithm for Scheduling Nurse Visits for Dialysis Patients.The algorithm is based on two factors: (1) a patient&rsquo;s total risk stratification score, determined by a number of risk factors; and (2) number of weeks since the previous visit. The two factors are combined to create a priority score. High-risk patients who have not been seen recently will be given the highest score, and low-risk patients who have been seen recently will receive the lowest score.Nurses can visit more than one clinic in a day. The calculation of travel time between clinics is accomplished using Google Maps application programming interface (assuming 1 hour for each patient visit).Results of implementing the algorithm were: (1) find a clinic and treatment shift that would allow a nurse to see patients with the highest priority score; (2) find the clinic that would give the highest cumulative priority score for the patients that could be seen within the allotted travel time; (3) seek small improvements by repeating step 2, assuming fewer patients are seen at clinic 1 would free up more time to see patients at clinic 2. Assess the day&rsquo;s trip to ascertain whether any of the solutions improved the total patient priority scores. Repeat steps one to three as required for a given week.&ldquo;Automating scheduling nurses may improve the efficiency of resources, can give priority to patients that need more visits, reduces time for scheduling, and allows for high priority patients to be seen sooner, avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations,&rdquo; the researchers said.Source: Blanchard T, Usvyat L, Demaline J, Aronson A, Conti J, Maddux F. Algorithm for scheduling nurse visits for dialysis patients. Abstract of a poster presented at the National Kidney Foundation 2019 Spring Clinical Meetings, May 8-12, 2019, Boston, Massachusetts.

Roger Rodby, MD

Joel M. Topf, MD, FACP

Seldin Award Winner Advocates Online Education

NKF Spring Clinical Meetings 2025

Hatem Soliman, MD

The Future of Dendritic Cell Vaccines in HER2+ Breast Cancer: Toward De-Escalation of Chemotherapy

HER2 Breast Cancer

Jordana Jampel

Mechanism of Positive Association Between Parkinson’s Disease and Melanoma Revealed in New Research

Melanoma

Latest News

Scheduling Algorithm Improves Efficiency of Resources

Nephrology Times

At a large dialysis provider, nurses are assigned to have in-person assessment of patients identified as high risk for poor outcomes.

About Us

Editorial Policy

Advertising

Contact Us

eNewsletters

Contribute

Career Center

MashupMD

Blood Cancers Today

Cancer Nursing Today

GU Oncology Now

Urban Health Today

Bile Duct Cancer

Colorectal Cancer

Gastroesophageal Cancer

Gastric Cancer

GEP-NETs

GIST

Liver Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer

GI Oncology Now

Anemia

Deep Vein Thrombosis

Essential Thrombocythemia

Hemophilia

Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Myelodysplastic Syndromes

Myelofibrosis

Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

Polycythemia Vera

Pulmonary Embolism

Sickle Cell Disease

Thrombocytopenia

Thrombophilia

Thrombosis

Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Venous Thromboembolism

von Willebrand Disease

Heme Today

Acute Kidney Injury

ADPKD

Anemia and Kidney Disease

Chronic Kidney Disease

COVID-19 and Kidney Disease

Diabetes and Hypertension

End-Stage Renal Disease

Gout

Hyperkalemia

IgAN

Kidney Transplantation

Metabolic Acidosis

HR Breast Cancer

Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Genetics & Breast Cancer

Breast Cancers Today

Atherosclerotic Disease

Atrial Fibrillation

Heart Failure

Hypertension

Interventional Cardiology

Lipid Management

Practice Tips With Dr. Lichaa

Preventive Cardiology

Stroke

Cardiology

Breast Cancer

Gynecologic Cancer

Head and Neck Cancer

Skin Cancer

Oncology

Sleep

Urology

Diabetes

Ophthalmology

— Demodex Blepharitis

Neurology

Rheumatology

Gastroenterology

Pulmonology

Infectious Diseases

— HIV

Health and Wellness

Lupus

Future of Medicine

Orthopedics

Pharmacology

Career News

More

Conferences

CardioNerds

The Sleep Source With Dr. Morse

Rheumatology Rounds With Dr. Maheswaranathan

Partners

Expert Interviews

Subscribe