Title Managing human resources in nursing: the relationship of nurses’ working time and patients’ independence level /
Authors Čiarnienė, Ramunė ; Suprikienė, Roberta ; Čiutienė, Rūta ; Daunorienė, Asta ; Riklikienė, Olga
DOI 10.3846/jbem.2019.8339
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Is Part of Journal of business economics and management.. Vilnius : Technika. 2019, vol. 20, iss. 1, p. 192-207.. ISSN 1611-1699. eISSN 2029-4433
Keywords [eng] nurse administrators ; nurses ; nurse-patient relations ; health workforce ; workplace ; time factors ; workload
Abstract [eng] A skilled, competent, and motivated nursing workforce is crucial for a well-functioning health care system. Nurses’ professional activities done on a regular basis, their workload, and oc - cupancy are related to the patient’s health status, dependence level and care needs. Therefore, man - aging human resources in nursing by effectively distributing nurses’ working time and monitoring their workload for safe and high quality care, managers should rely on the severity of patients’ health status and their independence level. In this article the results on how nurses’ working time depends on patients’ independence are pro - vided. The research was carried out at a regional hospital, in departments of medical profile. The time-and-motion study was implemented with 72 observations made in total, which amounted to 777.2 hours of nursing time. A questionnaire was used to assess the level of patients’ independence by assessing the four activities of the patient’s daily living. The results revealed that the largest amount of nurses’ working time, i.e. almost half of a day shift, was spent on direct patient care by administrating medication use and performing various nursing procedures. Nurses would spend al - most half of the time for direct patient care on completely dependent patients, while one third would be spent on dependent patients. The relative number of nurses’ contacts with a patient is directly proportional to patient’s level of independence; a strong or fairly strong linear relationship was estab - lished between the level of patients’ independence and the relative amount of nurses’ working time.
Published Vilnius : Technika
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2019
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