Condition upgraded!

I was on my way home when I heard on the radio that one of my patient's condition was upgraded from critical to stable at 12:30pm. I though this was strange, who upgraded his condition? I know I didn't. In fact, what exactly does condition mean? We sometimes write condition in the initial admission orders but I have never seen an order on any chart that says "upgrade condition to stable". Is there someone in the hospital that is in charge of this, and if so why is in not a HIPPA vioation? There is probably some JACHO form buried in the chart about this that I don't know about and will subsequently get a nasty gram about. In the mean time I think I will use a condition scale like, sick, sicker, and really sick. I will make sure that it is written out and not an abbreviation so it is not a JACHO violation.

I think a better way to judge condition is the number of catherters inserted into the body. IV, foley, ng, chest tube, central line, swan, ballon pump, surgical drains, g tube, icp bolt, art line. This way the reporter could say "MR. Patient is now a 7 instead of an 8".