The Nursing Workflow in the Intensive Care Unit

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Reasons for Choosing the Article
Study Area
Nursing Activities
Research Limitations
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Nursing is a profession that is responsible for providing essential health care services to patients. This enables the sick to deal with, cope, and live with illnesses to lead everyday lives. The intensive care unit in a health institution provides life support and critical care for acutely injured patients. The nurses play critical roles in the ICU by monitoring patients’ progress, administering treatments, and maintaining patients’ records. Additionally, they identify changes in patients’ conditions and act immediately. This article summarizes the nursing workflow in the intensive care unit among the enlisted nurses in research conducted in mainland China.

Reasons for Choosing the Article

Firstly, this article was chosen because it provides knowledge in the nursing workflow. This information is helpful in human allocation and nursing management. Allocation involves the reassigning of nursing staff on a day-to-day basis. An account of staff insufficiency, time fluctuations in patient’s requirements, and staff absence is taken. Management in nursing requires the assignment of nurses to various patients. By doing this, the patients’ needs are given the needed attention. Nurse Managers play the overall role of supervising the nursing staff in a hospital.

There was ethical consideration taken into consideration during the research. This was done after the approval of the ethics committee of Xuanwu Hospital in Capital Medical University. The targeted population was informed of the research, and they were given freedom of determination of the research if it made them unsafe and insecure. The design method applied during the research was observational, time, motion, and perspective. It allows the researcher to watch an individual continuously and record their conduct. The time taken by a person to complete each behavior from a start to the end is noted. One’s different manners are assessed according to direction and flow.

Study Area

The study was conducted in a hospital in China with nine ICUs units. It had 159 beds and 40 patients admitted with various illnesses (Han et al., 2020). The workflow of all the nine ICUs was analyzed. Each ICU was assigned one nurse manager responsible for primary nurse tasks. Information technology has cooperated into the workflow of nurses, where most activities are done by a personal digital assistant and an intensive care information system. The patient’s privacy has been protected by ensuring the systems have strong passwords. The publications review method was adopted to recover data from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang databases to identify nursing activities.

Nursing Activities

Nurses were found to perform both direct and indirect roles in the hospital. Direct care services came from a nurse spending time with the patient’s family. Indirect nursing care refers to preparations done by the nurse before interacting and treating the patient (Chipps et al., 2021). To ensure data reliability, a panel of experts comprising the ICU managers discussed the activities assigned to nurses. This ensures that information given at the end of the research is relevant and authentic. Twenty-seven researchers specializing in nursing acted as observers in data collection (Han et al., 2020). Nursing activities were recorded in paper form, including columns indicating the start and finish times. They recorded 107 groups of nursing activities, 6 categories, and 20 subcategories.

Nursing documentation includes assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of care. Data records include the patient’s name, address, age, and next of kin. This information is critical in the diagnosis process in addition to avoiding confusion. Similarly, the health personnel can be able to do follow-up quickly. The communication process in the hospital enables the treatment process to be conducted with ease (Happ, 2021). Good communication skills should be used during the interaction to understand the patient’s experiences and concerns. Positive interaction will make the patients accessible and be able to give out truthful information. Doctor-nurse communication is critical for treating the patient and should be on good terms.

Nurses’ personal affairs in the hospital include free time for eating and relaxing. Following shifts can facilitate this is followed so that patients always have caregivers. Order of activities should be observed to ensure a smooth transition from one task to another. The training was conducted before research to elaborate on the purpose, significance, and research tools. The researchers arrived at the working station 10 minutes before time. One nurse was identified for observation, and 30 nurses on duty were examined 79 times during that research period. The nursing work activities and time were written down for analysis purposes. Grading was done on a grade of 1-9 according to their experience and expertise (Happ, 2021). It was noted that most nurses consume their time in direct care, communication, and documentation activities.

Research Limitations

There were many limitations during the research aimed at studying nurses’ workflow. Firstly, lack of data before coming up with the online databases, hence the need for future comparison to verify existing information. The research was only conducted in one hospital, and no comparison was made with other facilities. There is insufficient time to collect, analyze, and verify data since the calculations are complex and time-consuming. Lastly, the nurses may have changed their behavior during the research, and the data might give a negative impression.

Conclusion

The main objective of the study was to observe and analyze workflow for ICU nurses. It was concluded that most nurses spend plenty of their time in direct care services. Nursing managers play a major role in ensuring time management and smooth flow of activities in the hospital. Patients’ data were kept confidential through the use of electronic records. Patients are able to interact with healthcare givers via online.

References

Chipps, E. M., Joseph, M. L., Alexander, C., Lyman, B., Mcginty, L., Nelson-Brantley, H., Parchment, J., Rivera, R. R., Schultz, M. A., Ward, D. M. & Weaver, S. (2021). Setting the research agenda for nursing administration and leadership science.JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, Publish Ahead of Print 51(9), 430-438. Web.

Han, B., Li, Q., Chen, X., & Zhao, G. (2020). Workflow for intensive care unit nurses: A time and motion study. SAGE Open, 10(3), 1-10. Web.

Happ, M. (2021). Giving voice: Nurse-patient communication in the intensive care unit. American Journal of Critical Care, 30(4), 256-265. Web.

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