Nursing staff work patterns in a residential aged care home: a time?motion study.

Conclusion Medication administration, documentation and verbal communication were the major tasks in morning shifts in a residential aged care home. Future research can investigate how verbal communication supports nursing care.What is known about the topic? The aging population will substantially increase the demand for residential aged care services. There is a lack of research on nurses' work patterns in residential aged care homes.What does this paper add? The present study provides a comprehensive understanding of nurses' work patterns in a residential aged care home. There is a common work process followed by nurses in providing nursing care. Medication administration, verbal communication and documentation are the most time-consuming activities and they are frequently conducted in the same period of time. Wound care, physical review and documentation on desktop computers are arranged flexibly by the nurses.What are the implications for practitioners? When developing a task reallocation strategy to improve work efficiency, effort can be put into tasks that can be arranged more flexibly.
PMID: 26615222 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Australian Health Review - November 30, 2015 Category: Hospital Management Authors: Qian S, Yu P, Hailey D Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research