Won Hee Sim | 2 Articles |
PURPOSE
To determine nurse staffing by classifying patients based on their nursing care needs and to benchmark current staffing against the Safer Nursing Care Tool (SNCT) staffing requirements. METHODS Cross-sectional data were collected from four general wards at a tertiary hospital. Nursing activities conducted by 86 registered nurses were observed at 10-minute intervals. The nursing care needs of 780 inpatients were measured with two dimensions: acuity (10 nursing activities) and dependency (four activities of daily living). RESULTS Nurses worked for 9.3 hours per shift on average, reflecting overtime work of 1.3 hours per nurse. Nurses spent 37% of their time on direct care, 54% on indirect care, and 9% on associated work. Nursing hours per patient day increased as nursing care needs became higher. Patients were classified into four groups based on their level of nursing care needs. The staffing ratio of groups 1-4 was 1:9.8, 1:8.0, 1:7.0, and 1:4.6, respectively. The current staffing (i.e., nursing hours) was as low as 53% of the SNCT benchmark, resulting in informal caregiving by patients' family or their privately hired attendants. CONCLUSION Appropriate and safe staffing is required to meet patients' nursing care needs and to improve the quality of nursing care. Citations Citations to this article as recorded by
PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to identify nurses' role in the delivery of health guidance service within the annual health guidance membership service. METHODS Dynamic job analysis process was applied with vertical job analysis and horizontal job analysis through a focus group workshop and expert survey. RESULTS As a result of this study, job description was established with 4 duties, 11 tasks, 60 task elements. Major duties consisted of 'professional nurse practice', 'coordination and cooperation', 'education and consultation', and 'administrative work and improvement'. A job process map was also framed. CONCLUSION The results can be used to establish nurses' role in providing health care service. Ongoing research on nurse's role as a health guider will be a fundamental base for health care service development and will contribute to expansion of common health management services.
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