Search Results (3)

Background: Nurses report that they often must perform activities outside their area of expertise, referred to as “non-nursing tasks”. The time spent on simple tasks undermines nursing capacity, which is already challenged by the dramatic shortage of nurses. Performing non-nursing tasks affects nurses’ satisfaction and their intention to stay. However, despite their relevance, there is no summary of studies on non-nursing tasks. The aim of this study is to summarize available evidence on characteristics of non-nursing tasks, their antecedents, and consequences, to identify gaps in the existing literature and to make recommendations for management, education, practice, and nursing research. Methods: A scoping review will be conducted using Arksey and O’Malley’s methodological framework. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews, and the Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and research framework will be used to report and summarize the findings. Results: Findings will provide a map regarding the main patterns of research in this area and the evidence produced to date. Two main lines of findings are expected, namely the conceptual and the empirical. The former may contribute to the understanding of the terminology and concept used so far to clearly express non-nursing tasks; the empirical evidence may shed light on frequencies, instruments, reasons, and effects. Discussion: An analysis of non-nursing tasks will provide healthcare organizations with a conceptual framework of all variations in the phenomenon and will help managers to identify the activities that will fall within this conceptual construct. The establishment of a research strand in this field, based on a science-based review involving international stakeholders, can strengthen global action to prevent the occurrence of non-nursing tasks. Full article

Background: The purpose of this study was to reduce the length of stay of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction patients within a private hospital in Ireland, reducing any non-value-added activity in the patient pathway, with the goal of increasing patient flow, bed capacity, and revenue generation within the hospital system, while maintaining patient satisfaction. Methods: We used a pre-/post-intervention design and Lean Six Sigma methods and tools to assess and improve the current process. Results: A reduction in inpatient length of stay by 57%, and a reduction in identified non-value-added activity by 88%, resulted in a new day-case surgery pathway for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction patients. The pathway evidenced no re-admissions and demonstrated patient satisfaction. Conclusion: Six months post-project commencement, we had successfully achieved our goals of reducing our anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction patient’s length of stay. This study contributes to the growing body of published evidence which shows that adopting a Lean Six Sigma approach can be successfully employed to optimise care and surgical pathways in healthcare. Full article

Healthcare services are facing challenges in increasing their efficiency, quality of care, and coping with surges in demand. To this end, some hospitals have implemented lean healthcare. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the effects of lean healthcare (LH) interventions on inpatient care and determine whether patient flow and efficiency outcomes improve. The review was performed according to PRISMA. We used six databases to search for studies published from 2002 to 2019. Out of 5732 studies, 39 measuring one or more defined outcomes were included. Hospital length of stay (LOS) was measured in 23 studies, 16 of which reported a reduction, turnover time (TOT) decreased in six out of eight studies, while the turnaround time (TAT) and on-time starts (OTS) improved in all five and seven studies, respectively. Moreover, eight out of nine studies reported an earlier discharge time, and the boarding time decreased in all four cases. Meanwhile, the readmission rate did not increase in all nine studies. Lastly, staff and patient satisfaction improved in all eight studies. Our findings show that by focusing on reducing non-value-added activities, LH contributed to improving patient flow and efficiency within inpatient care. Full article