The content of nurse unit managers' work: a descriptive study using daily activity diaries

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Nursing Administration
• Workforce Studies

Background:

• Icelandic hospitals revised nurse unit manager (NUM) job descriptions to include managerial and financial duties.
• This study examines the alignment between NUMs' actual activities and their updated job roles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To document and analyze the daily work activities of nurse unit managers (NUMs) in surgical and internal medicine services.
• To compare self-documented activities with official job descriptions.

Main Methods:

• A prospective exploratory study was conducted at Iceland's largest hospital.
• Nurse unit managers (NUMs) used activity diaries for 7 days, logging time across 5 domains and 41 specific tasks.
• Data covered management, staff responsibility, clinical work, service, and other activities.

Main Results:

• NUMs dedicated the most time to 'other' (32%) and 'management and planning'/'clinical nursing' (19%) domains.
• They spent the least time on 'service' (14%) and frequently multitasked.
• NUMs inaccurately estimated their time allocation in roughly half of their self-assessments.

Conclusions:

• The role of nurse unit managers (NUMs) is characterized by high diversity and includes significant undefined and miscellaneous tasks.
• Clinical work performed by NUMs often extends beyond their formal job descriptions.
• There is a notable discrepancy between NUMs' perceived and actual time allocation, impacting job satisfaction.