Patient volume alone is not an accurate measurement to determine the workload per provider in the NICU. Provider workload varies greatly from patient to patient based on the severity of illness and medical comorbidities. We have not found any models that assess provider workload based on patient acuity and number. It was our intention to use this data to govern a dynamic provider staffing paradigm. We have developed a simple acuity score sheet that was used to evaluate each patient in the NICU at Mercy hospital, for 30 days consecutively (fig 1). We monitored 79 patients, for a total of 403 acuity measurements. The acuity scores were collected, average acuity for the day was calculated. In fig 2 acuity and census are depicted. In fig 3 the total daily acuity is divided by the number of providers. We found the acuity scale was easy to apply. Normalized acuity vs NICU volume is depicted in figure 2. Total acuity per provider is depicted in figure 3 . When acuity approaches 10 even low patient volumes may require additional staffing. At night acuity per provider almost doubles as the number of providers decreases. Future studies are needed to correlate this data with provider satisfaction to better understand the effects of patient workload. Our goal is to alter NICU provider staffing based this model.