Are we measuring nursing workflow correctly? A literature review

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Workforce Studies

Background:

• Nursing workload assessment is crucial for quality care and workforce sustainability.
• Traditional shift patterns (day, evening, night) present unique workload challenges.
• Existing methods for characterizing nursing work include observational, self-reporting, and work-sampling techniques.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the literature on quantitative and qualitative approaches to understanding nursing workload distribution across different shifts.
• To identify inadequacies in current methods for measuring nursing productivity and workload.
• To explore the relationship between nursing workload, quality of care, and job satisfaction.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature review was conducted.
• Data were systematically sourced from CINAHL, Scopus, and Medline databases.
• Both quantitative and qualitative research articles were examined.

Main Results:

• Findings indicate an inadequacy in current nursing workload measurement methods, potentially misrepresenting nursing productivity.
• This inadequacy may contribute to suboptimal quality of care and increased healthcare costs.
• A significant gap exists in high-quality research detailing workload distributions across nursing shifts.

Conclusions:

• Current approaches to assessing nursing workload may not accurately reflect productivity, potentially affecting care quality and nurse job satisfaction.
• Improved methods for workload assessment are needed to ensure efficient resource allocation and enhance the nursing workforce.
• Further high-quality research is recommended to investigate nursing workload distributions across different shifts.