Acuity Ava — Prioritization Frameworks: ABCs, Acuity & Maslow
When four call lights go off at once, Ava doesn't move faster — she ranks: airway before breathing, acute before chronic, unstable before stable
Four call lights, one Ava: a fresh post-op, a chronic COPD client, a client with new chest pain, and a client asking for help to the bathroom.
Ava is the nurse charge calls when the floor erupts, because she ranks instead of reacting. Her framework stack never changes order: ABCs first (an obstructed airway beats a breathing problem, which beats a circulation problem), then acute before chronic (the new problem outranks the managed one), then unstable before stable, then actual problems before potential ones — and underneath it all, Maslow: physiologic needs and safety come before belonging and esteem. NCLEX priority questions are never about who is sickest overall — they are about which client deteriorates first if the nurse walks into the wrong room.
Read Acuity Ava's full story →The story arc
The setup
Ava gets four simultaneous calls at 14:00 and has thirty seconds to choose her first room.
The turn
The loudest request is the bathroom assist from a stable client; the quietest is the fresh post-op whose call light is barely pressed.
The crisis
The COPD client's daughter insists her father's breathing is 'always like this,' while the chest-pain client says his pain is 'probably heartburn.'
The save
Ava's order: new chest pain first (possible MI, time-critical), fresh post-op second (acute — assess airway and bleeding), COPD third (chronic, stable, expected findings), bathroom assist last — delegated to the UAP, who can go now.
NCLEX study section — Prioritization Frameworks: ABCs, Acuity & Maslow
What this chapter is testing: the recognition cues, the numbers and the priority action.
Study section: Management of Care
Take this chapter into practice questions on the same topic.