title: Quantifying client need for care in the community: a strategy for managed care.
abstract: The Community Health Intensity Rate Scale (CHIRS) is a tool that provides an index of a client's need for care. Emphasis in healthcare has shifted from episodes of illness to covered lives and managed care. CHIRS contains all the elements for holistically determining the intensity of a client's need for care and the environmental, psychosocial, and health behaviors of the client. The CHIRS has been utilized with a variety of community health populations. Each application of CHIRS provided feedback to the researchers for use in revising CHIRS. This article reports the findings of a study which tested the validity and reliability of the refined version of CHIRS. The validity and reliability needed further refinement at the indicator level. The study produced a more practical tool for determining intensity of need for clients in the community.
authors.affiliation: University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Nursing, Omaha, USA.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Hays
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sather
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Peters
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003152:Community Health Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000458:organization & administration*; D020380:Needs Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000523:psychology; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires