Category: Nursing Productivity

This study aims to measure associations between self-compassion, compassion fatigue, wellbeing, and burnout in community nurses. Results show that community nurses who score high on measures of self-compassion and wellbeing, also report less burnout. Greater compassion satisfaction was also positively associated with compassion for others, and wellbeing, whilst also being negatively correlated with burnout. Conclusion: High levels of self-compassion were linked with lower levels of burnout. Furthermore when community nurses have greater compassion satisfaction they also report more compassion for others, increased wellbeing, and less burnout. The implications of this are discussed alongside suggestions for the promotion of greater compassion.

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Infusion preparation in British PICUs uses the Rule of Six (ROS) which was developed for administration without infusion devices. This method is inaccurate.1 Regulators recommend standardised approaches to IV infusions to improve patient safety and quality of care.2 Administration set changes also have an association with resource use and central line infections.3 We report the impact of fixed concentration infusions and reduced administration set changes on nursing time and infusion equipment cost. Morphine and midazolam infusions were standardised in September 2014. Direct observation of infusion preparation was carried out beforeand after the introduction of fixed-concentration (FC) infusions to quantify the nursing time required to prepare infusions. Administration was prospectively documented using purposive sampling until a population-representative sample for age and weight was obtained (1 month). This data was then scaled up to predict activity over one year. Syringe use and administration set use was calculated. Reducing frequency of administration set changes to 72 hrs in accordance with infection control policy was then calculated retrospectively. It takes 40 minutes (2 nurses×20 minutes) to prepare ROS syringes and 30 minutes (2 nurses×15 minutes) for FC syringes.In total ROS infusions required 2433 hrs of nursing time to prepare. FC infusions reduced this time by 25% (608 hrs) releasing 0.5 WTE nursing time back to patient care.Mean duration of IV sedation in these patients was 100 hrs. The cost associated with replacing administration sets with each syringe was £16,060. By changing every 72 hrs, this cost is reduced to £4,400 – a cost saving of £11,660. FC syringes are more efficient than ROS. FC preparations have released 0.5 WTE nurses back to patient care. Changing administration sets 72 hrly realises significant cost efficiencies.

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Compassion satisfaction is recognized as a potentially protective factor in reducing compassion fatigue or burnout among health care workers. This study examined whether nurses’ professional quality of life scores significantly improved after nurses learned and implemented massage techniques. Participating nurses in a U.S. hospital most often administered massage to relieve patients’ stress and pain. Nurses were able to incorporate massage into daily nursing care and perceived massage as relaxing for the patients and themselves. Burnout was significantly reduced over time for the study sample. Nurse-delivered massage should be further investigated for its ability to promote therapeutic nurse-patient relationships.

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Nursing staffing is of major interest in hospital management, however, no practical method has been developed. The present study proposed a mathematical model based on the patient classification system for nursing staffing optimization. A few characteristic parameters possibly determined experimentally and/or empirically were introduced followed by systematic calculation of the required number of nurses. An essential concept of the model is the unit work load defined as the amount of nursing work performed on single patient per unit time, where the work load is defined as the number of nursing staffs multiplied by the working hours. The unit work load was considered to vary with the patient classification level as well as the working time during a day, both of which were represented by corresponding parameter values. The number of patients for each class and the number of working hours were multiplied to the unit work load, and added up to obtain the total required work load. As the next step, the averaged number of hours that a nurse could provide per day was formulated considering the degree of nursing practice experience into 3 levels. Finally, the appropriate number of nursing staffs was calculated as the total work load divided by the average working hours per nurse. The present technique has a great advantage that the number of nursing staffs to fulfill the required work load is systematically calculated once the characteristic parameters are appropriately determined, leading to instant and fast evaluation. A practical PC program was also developed to apply the present model to nursing practice.

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Time scarcity is a common occurrence in the nurse work environment that stimulates a decision-making process, known as clinical prioritization or implicit rationing. In implicit rationing, nurses must decide what care they will complete and what they will leave unfinished. Five mechanisms that influence this process are supported in the literature. The effects of these influential mechanisms leave patients vulnerable to unmet educational, psychological, care coordination and discharge planning needs. Potential areas for intervention by nurse leaders include redesigning care delivery models to reduce time scarcity, adding balancing measures to performance monitoring systems to promote patient-centered care, and creating work cultures that support the values of nursing.

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Explores empirically the role that coaching plays in the development of nurse managers in order to inform further research and policy makers about the potential utility and value of this means of development. Findings show that following coaching, nurse managers gained increased resilience, confidence and better coping mechanisms. This resulted in perceived improved team management and cohesion and appeared to lead to better quality of care for patients.

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This article looks at The intensive care unit (ICU) is a stressful environment due to high patient mortality and morbidity, daily confrontations with ethical dilemmas, and a tension-charged
atmosphere. It proposes various interventions to enhance the ICU atmosphere and concludes that the critical care professional societies, hospitals, and other stakeholders all have a responsibility to acknowledge that moral distress occurs—and to develop strategies to identify moral distress among their members and employees.

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BACKGROUND: Very low birth-weight (<1500 g) infants are vulnerable to their environment during the first hour after birth. We designed an evidence-based golden hour protocol (GHP) with a goal to stabilize and perform admission procedures within 1 hour of birth at a level IIIB neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). PURPOSE:The aim of this quality improvement project was to ascertain whether an evidence-based GHP would improve care efficiency and short-term outcomes. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE:The use of a GHP provided an organized approach to admission procedures and care. By using a checklist and recording intervention times, NICU caregivers were more aware of time management for each intervention and were able to decrease time to initiation of intravenous fluids and antibiotics. The Academy Library does not currently subscribe to the journal that this article appears in, however we can most likely request it from another library. Please contact the UHSM Academy Library for more detail or call 0161 291 5778.

Waste in the NHS is estimated to account for 20% of health expenditure. This article examines the literature on reducing waste, analyses some approaches to waste reduction, and identifies the role that nurses and other health professionals can play in developing a sustainable NHS. For the purposes of the article, and to inform nursing practice, the definition of, and discussion about, waste is broader than that outlined by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) controlled waste regulations, and the Royal College of Nursing classification. It includes clinical waste, waste arising out of clinical practice, service delivery and care, infrastructure, and carbon emissions.

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A number of recent reports have highlighted that a large proportion of the practice nurse population is due to retire in the next 5–10 years. Historically, it has been perceived that newly qualified nurses cannot work in primary care without first gaining experience in secondary care. City and Hackney attempted to recruit experienced practice nurses at the beginning of 2015, but was unsuccessful. The advert did however attract interest from nurses who did not have the requisite skills. City and Hackney Gp Confederation, working in conjunction with Health education england north Central and east london (HEE NCEL), the local Community education provider network (CEPN), developed a 12-month training programme for salaried trainee practice nurses to be piloted. The programme started in January 2016 with a cohort of 16 nurses. The initial reaction to the role of the trainee practice nurse has been broadly positive. it is intended that the trainee general practice nurses pilot scheme will become an integral part of the primary care workforce planning processes, which will enable local Gp practices to manage recruitment into practice nurse roles in the future.

Managing workforce planning: Innovation in practice nursing. ( Practice Nursing, 2016 27(6)) (Follow this link if you have an Athens password).