A charge nurse assignment board that respects your time.
Build fair, defensible assignments faster. Tag each patient's acuity factors, see every nurse's load against your ratio, and get a flag when an assignment drifts out of balance. Stored on your phone.
Charge isn’t hard because the math is hard. It’s hard because the math changes every two hours. Admits, transfers, codes, call-outs, an acuity bump on bed 4, a nurse who needs to go to lunch in fifteen minutes — and the paper grid you started the shift with is already obsolete.
RN PocketPal’s assignment board is built for the way assignments actually evolve: quick reassignments, visible trade-offs, and a room-numbers-only sheet you can hand to the unit.
What RN PocketPal does
- Acuity factors per patient (ventilator, trach, isolation, drips, total care, admission, pending discharge, fresh post-op and more). Each factor adds a fixed number of points to a 1–10 difficulty score, and the board shows exactly which factors produced it.
- Ratio and load flags: set the ratio for your unit type (or override it for the shift) and the board flags a nurse who goes over it or over the acuity load cap. It also flags things like too many isolation patients on one nurse, an admission and a discharge on the same nurse, a split across pods, or a telemetry or chemo patient without the matching certification. Flags warn; they never block a save.
- Build assignments: one tap drafts a plan that spreads patients evenly by count and total difficulty. You review the draft and apply it or change it.
- Reassign a patient by tapping the room and picking a nurse, with a reason code (for example continuity, fairness, or break coverage). Every change lands in the shift’s audit log.
- Equity dashboard showing each nurse’s load. On iPhone it also looks back across the last five completed shifts.
- Print per-nurse cards with room numbers only, no patient initials. On Android you can also share or save the same PDF after a screen-lock check.
- Stored on your device. The board doesn’t sync between phones.
Who it’s for
Built for charge nurses on telemetry, step-down, ICU, ED, and med-surg units. Also useful for relief charge / shift coordinators who want a record of why assignments changed — without patient names leaving the phone.
Educational reference only. Not a medical device. Verify with clinical judgment, facility policy, and primary sources. Read the full disclaimer.
Frequently asked questions
- How does acuity scoring work?
- You tag the factors that apply to each patient, such as ventilator, isolation, active drips, total care, or a pending admission. Each factor adds a fixed number of points to a 1–10 difficulty score, and the board totals each nurse’s load so you can balance it. There is no manual 1–5 score to assign. The score is a planning aid; your unit’s policies decide the assignment.
- Can I share the assignment board with the team?
- You can print per-nurse cards that show room numbers only, never patient initials. On Android you can also share or save that PDF after a screen-lock check. The board does not sync between devices.
- What about breaks and meal coverage?
- There is no break planner. If you move patients to cover a break, pick the break reason code and the change is recorded in the audit log.
- Is this for hospital-wide staffing or just a single unit?
- Single unit. RN PocketPal is a bedside / charge tool, not a hospital-wide staffing system. We don’t replace Kronos or Symplr.
- How does this protect patient privacy?
- The board is stored on your device and is not sent to RN PocketPal servers. Patient initials you enter stay on the device; printed cards and exports carry room numbers, difficulty scores, and factor flags only.
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