A project to revise the patient needs rank assessment scale for discharge planning

A comprehensive discharge planning assessment tool facilitates the provision of services that meet individual needs thus also facilitating the implementation of high-quality discharge planning. This project used a medical center in northern Taiwan as an example, applied interviews and the questionnaire method, and found that the sensitivity and specificity of existing rank assessment scales were all lower than the standard of 70%, too low to provide accurate screening for classification of needs. In revising the assessment items of, "The Patient Needs Rank Assessment Scale for Discharge Planning", a quantified score was set for the degree of need for each rank, to compute the cut point of each rank with the appropriate sensitivity and specificity. The results show that sensitivity and specificity after revision of the assessment scale all exceeded 70%. As far as satisfaction in clinical usage was concerned, personnel sought to match assessment standards with clinical patients' needs and accurately screened three grades of patient need. Initially, the increase in satisfaction was of clear statistical significance (p < .05). This showed that revision of, "The Patient Needs Rank Assessment Scale for Discharge Planning" can be applied to achieve accurate screening of patient need grades.