In the rooms furthest from the nursing stations, visits would be less frequent but longer.
- The nursing profession is predominantly female in France, with 86% of positions held by women.
- Of the 744,000 active nurses, 65% of them work in a hospital.
The assessment of a room is generally based on one criterion: calm, an essential condition for restful sleep. In the hospital, one should rather pay attention to its location. According to a study published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Managementtreatments vary depending on where the room is located.
Its author, Lesley Meng, had the idea of working on this subject after talking to hospital staff in an emergency department. She discovered that the badges they wore were fitted with infrared locator beacons. Every six seconds, they send a signal to detect the location of the practitioner in the emergency department. This information was used by Lesley Meng and her team to observe how nurses organized their movements between different rooms, and the impact this had on patient care.
Eight kilometers a day in the corridors of the hospital
In total, the experiment lasted five months, during which the 217 nurses recruited for the study cared for nearly 30,000 patients. On average, each of them traveled 8 kilometers a day. Scientists wondered if they tended to cut out unnecessary journeys, how, and if they visited patients in distant rooms less.
“The main information, which is a relief, is that the nurses are doing a great job, commented Lesley Meng. They distribute their time fairly evenly.“Wherever the rooms are, patients have the same care time, but”it is delivered in a different way“.
A similar quality of care, but a different feeling
The furthest rooms are less frequently visited by nurses, but for a longer period of time: according to the researchers, caregivers tend to perform several tasks at the same time. In terms of numbers, the rooms furthest from the nurses’ care station had on average 50% fewer visits, but the visits were 50% longer, or one minute longer. These differences had no impact on the quality of care.
“Whatever room the patients were in, the nurses took good care of them“, specifies the scientist. On the other hand, the patients became more impatient when they were in the most distant rooms. The researchers observed that they tended to use their call button more, which is associated with a “decrease in satisfaction” and some “perceived quality of service“. To improve patient experience, Lesley Meng and her team suggest better informing them.”A lot happens when the caregiver is away – your blood is being tested, a radiologist is looking at your x-raysays the author. If he there is a way to provide this information to patients, it might reduce their impatience or dissatisfaction.“
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