NURSING ACTIVITIES AND PERFORMANCE TIME AT A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL IN VIET NAM

Abstract

Background: Nurses are responsible for care to patients (recognizing signs and symptoms, applying measures to aminister medication and symptom alliviation, collaborating with other health care workers to comforting patients and their family members. Along with the intensively developing trend(s) of healthcare recently, nursing activity has been gaining more intensively. Measuring nursing activities and implementation time helps determine nursing staff level to ensure patient care, minimize the nursing workload, reduce some medical risk by nurse working overload.

Objective: Find out the nursing activities and the duration for implement the activities. Since then determine the direct and indirect nursing care time.

Methods: Cross-section study describes the series of nursing care activities in medical - surgical patients, and critical patients in ICU. The study was counducted through morning, afternoon, night shifts from October 1st , 2019 to December 31st, 2019.

Results: There are 12 groups with 83 direct care activities and 13 indirect care activities which are implemented daily by nurses. The average nursing care time is correlated to categories of care hierarchy: 814,72 minutes for Special (critical) Level, 445.93 minutes for Level 1, 201,57 minutes for Level 2, 104.51 minutes for Level 3. The time of direct care accounted for 77.9% and 22.1% for indirect care. In which, the ratio of direct care time to total care time relating to Level catogories is 81,95% for Special Level patients, 84.07% for Level 1, 79.16%f for Level 2, and 61, 24% Level 3. There are differences in care time on the same hierarchy level between specialists and between shifts.

Conclusion: Care time based on the needs of patients in specific levels contributes in helping managers determine appropriate staff level, and reduce overload for nurses to ensure patient safety