일개 대학병원의 소아혈액종양 간호단위의 간호업무량 측정

Calculation of nursing care hours in a pediatric oncology nursing unit

The shortage of nursing personnel was become one of the most serious problems in operating pediatric oncology nursing unit which was the first pediatric oncology nursing unit in Korea. The purpose of this study was to estimate the optimal number of nursing personnel by calculating nursing care hours. The subjects were 13 staff nurses and inpatients of pediatric oncology nursing unit at Seoul National University Hospital during the period of May 20, 1996, to June 2, 1996. The number of nurses' duty was 132, the number of patients treated was 1288 for these 2 weeks. The tools used for this study were pediatric patient classification indexes and direct & indirect care indexes. Each nurse measured the time that they spent for their activities by self record under the supervision of their nurse manager. The method used to calculate the number of nursing personnel was multiplication of the average number of nursing care hours per patient per day with the number of patients. Percentage, average, t-test, F-test were used for data analysis. The results of this study were as follows : 1) The distribution of patient class : Class I & II none, Class III 86.8%. Class IV 12.9% 2) Direct nursing care hours for a patient per shift according to patient classification: Class III : 27.64 minutes, Class IV : 54.64 minutes The average direct nursing service hours for a patient per shift(3 shift) was 31.54 minutes(94.62 m/day). The average indirect nursing service hours for each patient per duty(3 shift) is 21.3 minutes (63. 91 m/day). 3) The average nursing hours for a patient per duty was 52.80 minutes(2.64h/day). 4) The group of administering medications in direct care activities showed the highest percentage (38.9%). Checking vital signs among observation took the most time am.ong each direct care activity (6.88 minutes for a patient per duty). 5) Charting took the most time of each indirect care activity(52.53 minutes/ duty/nurse). 6) The average personal time per duty is 29.40 minutes, which 'was below 30 minutes of this hospital regulations. 7) The average nursing hours that a nurse provided for a duty was 8.60 hours, which meant that a nurse worked 1.10 hours overtime. 8) Standardizing to a 33 bed to a unit, 17 nurses were needed at the present nursing level.