Data Visualization of Home Care Admission Nurses' Decision-Making

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Information Science

Background:

• The hospital to home care transition involves critical nursing decisions.
• Information utilization by nurses during this process is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how admitting home health nurses gather and use information for decision-making during the hospital to home care admission process.

Main Methods:

• A focus group case study was conducted with six admitting home health nurses in rural Pennsylvania.
• Thematic analysis and a custom node-link diagram were used to analyze data on decisions, tasks, and information themes.

Main Results:

• Identified key information themes and sub-themes influencing nurses' decisions.
• Visualized the relationships between decisions, tasks, and information.

Conclusions:

• Understanding nurses' information-seeking and usage behaviors is crucial for optimizing the hospital to home care transition.
• The developed visualization tool can aid in understanding and potentially improving decision-making processes.