An Experiment in Group Nursing

Abstract

WO years ago the West Suburban Hospital of Oak Park, Illinois, found it necessary to make some provision for the patients who were too sick to be on floor care and who were unable to pay $17 per day for twenty-four hours of special nursing. Physicians found that these patients were able to pay a moderate amount and were very willing to do so. The group-nursing plan, as worked out in Rochester, Minnesota, at St. Mary's Hospital, was studied by the Board of Directors, and it was decided to try a similar plan-not to aid the hospital financially, but to give efficient nursing care at a lower cost. Our experiment is, on this date, two years old. It is a record of the care of between 450 and 500 cases, medical and surgical, men, women and children. It is a record of about 3,500 days of nursing care. The surgical cases include hysterectomies, gallbladders, prostatectomies, thyroids and some tonsils; the medical cases include pyelitis, cystitis, gastric ulcers, pneumonias and a number of accident cases, mostly fractures. The plan we have worked out is as follows: One floor of our new addition is set aside for this experiment. It has a supervisor's office with adequate space for charting, for drugs, linen, sterile and other supplies. There is a janitor's closet, and a utility room with ice box, gas stove, hot and cold water terilizers, linen and trash chutes. There are eighteen private rooms in the section, each with a Ford a justable and coil spring mattress. Each room has a clothes closet and a private toilet room, the latter having a built-in metal cabinet with a complete set of sick-room utensils which make it possible for the nurse to give a bath, enema or alcohol rub without leaving the room. This saves much time and many steps for her. The patient appreciates the individual equipment and the time thus saved, running for things, can be used in caring for the patients. The fact that each patient has a private room makes our plan a little different from that of other hospitals. For this eighteen-room section, twelve nurses are employed by the hospital. They receive $125 a month, board and laundry, but no room. They work eight hours a day, with one day off a week. Eight nurses are on day duty, two on night duty, and ' Read at the annual meeting of the Illinois State Association of Graduate Nurses, Joliet, Ill., October 18, 1928.