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Intrahospital transfers and the impact on nursing workload
Author(s) -
Blay Nicole,
Roche Michael A,
Duffield Christine,
Gallagher Robyn
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1111/jocn.13838
Subject(s) - workload , observational study , medicine , nursing , economic shortage , intensive care , emergency medicine , medical emergency , intensive care medicine , linguistics , philosophy , pathology , government (linguistics) , computer science , operating system
Abstract Aims and objectives To determine the rate of patient moves and the impact on nurses’ time. Background Bed shortages and strategies designed to increase patient flow have led to a global increase in patient transfers between wards. The impact of transferring patients between wards and between beds within a ward on nurses’ workload has not previously been measured. Design A two‐stage sequential study. Retrospective analysis of hospital data and a prospective observational‐timing study. Methods Secondary analysis of an administrative data set to inform the rate of ward and bed transfers ( n = 34,715) was undertaken followed by an observational‐timing study of nurses’ activities associated with patient transfers ( n = 75). Results Over 10,000 patients were moved 34,715 times in 1 year which equates to an average of 2.4 transfers per patient. On average, patient transfers took 42 min and bed transfers took 11 min of nurses’ time. Based on the frequency of patient moves, 11.3 full‐time equivalent nurses are needed to move patients within the site hospital each month. Conclusion Transferring patients is workload intensive on nurses’ time and should be included in nursing workload measurement systems. Relevance to clinical practice Nurses at the site hospital spend over 1700 hr each month on activities associated with transferring patients, meaning that less time is available for nursing care.