Nursing processes analysis in district hospital in Lithuania

Abstract

Abstract Background The aim of the study - to evaluate the time devoted to the activities of therapeutic profile nursing and wastes in the nursing processes. Methods Time-and-motion study was applied for investigation of clinical workflow in nursing at district hospital in neurology and internal medicine departments. A total of four nurses, two nurses from each department, were observed. Duration of observation was 2 940 minutes (49 hrs). Results Nurses devote most of their time to administering medicines. It has been noted that there are many additional, unnecessary actions in this process. Likewise nursing staff devotes a lot of time to documentation management work: refills the same dossier when the information is recorded in paper forms, and then transfer it to the computers. For communication with patients, nursing staff spend a very small part of their working time and it is due to insufficient staff and stress and fatigue of the nurses. It is observed that the nurses of neurology and internal medicine departments spent 50.3 percent of their working time for a direct patient care, 19.3 percent of time - for indirect patient care, 22.3 percent for personal time and 8.0 percent for unit-related functions. According to the Lean methodology waste of overproduction, waiting, defects, bureaucracy, transportation, motion and human potential were identified in these departments. Conclusions Nurses of neurology and internal medicine departments spend most of their time for direct patient care and the least of their time for unit-related duties. Seven out of eight types of waste prevails in therapeutic departments of the district hospital. Key messages Adaptation of the Lean methodology of ’Visual Management’ may aid for optimizing the process of medication administration and diminishing the paper work of nurses. The manifestation of the stress and fatigue of the nurses could be reduced if the workloads of nurses were adjusted and adequately distributed.