Nurses' information practice in municipal health care-A web-like landscape.

J Clin Nurs

Department of Nursing Science, Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Published: July 2019

Aim: To uncover the characteristics of nurses' information practice in municipal health care and to address how, when and why various pieces of information are produced, shared and managed.

Background: Nursing documentation in the electronic patient record has repeatedly been found unsatisfactory. Little is known about how the information practice of nurses in municipal health care actually is borne out. In order to understand why nursing documentation continues to fail at living up to the expected requirements, a better understanding of nurses' information practice is needed.

Design: A qualitative observational field study. The study complied with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research.

Methods: Empirical data were collected in three Norwegian municipalities through participant observations and individual interviews with 17 registered nurses on regular day shifts. The data were analysed through thematic content analysis.

Results: Nurses' information practice in municipal health care can be described as complex. The complexity is reflected in four themes that emerged from the data: (1) web of information sources, (2) knowing the patient and information redundancy, (3) asynchronous information practice and (4) compensatory workarounds.

Conclusions: The complex and asynchronous nature of nurses' information practice affected both how and when information was produced, recorded and shared. When available systems lacked functions the nurses wanted, they created compensatory workarounds. Although electronic patient record was an important part of their information practice, nurses in long-term care often knew their patients well, which meant that a lot of information about the patients was in their heads, and that searching for information in the electronic patient record sometimes seemed redundant.

Relevance To Clinical Practice: This study provides contextual knowledge that might be valuable (a) in the further development of information systems tailored to meet nurses' information needs and (b) when studying patient safety in relation to nurses' information practice.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14873DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

nurses' practice
24
municipal health
16
practice municipal
12
health care
12
electronic patient
12
patient record
12
practice
9
nursing documentation
8
practice nurses
8
nurses'
7

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!