Managing an increasingly complex system

A study of more than 170,000 health care workers (including 47,692 registered nurses [RNs]) in 138 acute care health care organizations revealed that the role of the RN is characterized by excessive numbers of activities, a loss of focus on the professional components of nursing and significant activity overlap with other job classes. Additionally, the study found that these characteristics were related to reduced morale, decreased patient and physician satisfaction with care and increased health care costs. The results of this study suggest a need for nursing leaders to develop new methods for controlling the complexity of health care systems, particularly the complexity of the RN role. Controlling complexity requires better tools for identifying system inefficiencies, more advanced skills in cross-functional work process diagnostics and more effective strategies for reducing complexity across health care systems.