[Nursing performance on specialty units, hospital departments and for patient groups--a comparison based on minimal...

Nursing in Germany hides behind structural data like quantity and costs of nursing staff. This must be changed in aspect of the transparency of services in hospitals. The aim of this pilot study is to describe nursing services, find main focuses of nursing and point out significant differences between field units, wards and patient groups. On the basis of Belgian Nursing-Data-Sets, which was modified, all in all 2347 inpatient-days of 550 patients were collected. Analogous to the Belgian action, a Ridit Analysis was conducted, which allowed the construction of nursing profiles for every desired aggregation level. The knowledge of experience available regarding the different nursing services in departments and on the stations can at least be made valid, possibly even revised with the existing data equipment for the participating clinic. The easy to handle minimal Nursing Data Set allows the creation of a data basis, that can support decisions regarding the allocation of financial and personnel resources.