Study Finds Nurses Spend Bulk of Time Away from Bedside
A study in The Permanente Journal finds that nurses devote more than 75 percent of their time to nursing practice but spend only about one-third of that in patient rooms, Modern Healthcare reports.
Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the study assigned 767 licensed nurses from 36 medical-surgical units within 17 health care systems in 15 states to carry hand-held computers, four sensors to track movement and an armband that recorded physiological responses for 23 hours each day during one week.
In analyzing nurses' daily activities, researchers found that documentation required the most time, accounting for roughly 2.5 hours of every 10-hour shift. Care coordination was the next most time-intensive activity, occupying roughly 86 minutes per shift, followed by medication administration at about 72 minutes per shift, and patient assessments and the reading of vital signs at roughly 31 minutes per shift. In addition, the researchers found that nurses spent an average of 36 minutes per shift waiting for, delivering or searching for items, activities that the researchers note "are clearly targets for improving efficiency."
In terms of location during nursing practice, nurses spent 37.4 percent of their time in patient rooms, 43.3 percent of their time at the nurse station, 17.6 percent of their time on the patient unit and 1.6 percent of their time off the unit.
Commenting on this breakdown, the researchers note that the majority of documentation and care coordination activities take place at the nurse station. They add, meanwhile, that the nurses walked an average of 3.1 miles per shift, time that the researchers say could be better spent tending to patients. Based on their findings, the researchers identify three main targets for reducing inefficiency, including documentation, medication administration and care coordination. Specifically, they recommend that hospitals focus their efforts on improving technology, work processes, and unit organization and design, noting that changes to those areas could "allow for substantial improvements in the use of nurses' time and the safe delivery of care."
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4 comments:
I was on the ICU or STEPDOWN for years and the air conditioning was
awful and I was always thirsty.........this notice about not drinking at
bedside or on unit may sound important, but not terribly feasible.
Every unit should have a water cooler at the nursing station so nurses
can take frequent small amounts of water.........pour it, drink it, and
throw it away......without being too far from the patient or the
action.......keep a hand cleaner (Purell?) next to it and nurses can
clean before and after a drink.
I believe that medications are to widely used and Doctors feel that they need to do something so they put the patients on another pill. I believe we need to get away from this kind of care. We need to use more of a team approach and look at more alternative treatments instead of questionable quick fixes. This would cut down on med. errors and also errors that cause more physical harm. This would also free up time for bedside nursing ( where it belongs).
Not nearly enough time is spent at the bedside. If nurse/patient ratios were appropriate, there would be time for everything, including the patient.
AS A RN OF 35 YRS, I CAN TELL YOU I DIDNT GO INTO NURSING TO DO MORE + MORE PAPER WORK (OR COMPUTER). I WENT INTO NURSING TO TAKE CARE OF THE PATIENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCUMENTATION,HOWEVER I FEEL THE PATIENTS ARE NOT GETTING ADEQUETE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL CARE!!! EACH YR PEOPLE IN OFFICES,NOT @ BEDSIDE,THINK OF OTHER FORMS TO BE FILLED OUT,MOST OF THE INFO IS REDUNDENT.I FULLY UNDERSTAND WHY NURSES LEAVE THIS PROFFESSION!!!
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