Term of Award

Fall 1994

Degree Name

Master of Nursing

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Department

School of Nursing

Committee Chair

Camille P. Stern

Committee Member 1

Marilyn M. Buck

Committee Member 2

Brenda Talley

Abstract

Patients are no longer satisfied with the health care that they are receiving today. Consumers are questioning the additional cost that they are asked to pay. Nurses are now spending less and less of their time taking care of patients. Before Patient Focused Care (PFC) was started nurses spent 21% of their work time in patient care activities: whereas, after the implementation the time nurses spent at the bedside increased to 53%. The purpose of this study is to compare the perceived difference of job satisfaction with two groups of nurses using two different types of patient care delivery systems in the same hospital. The conceptual framework focused on in this study is the Deming management method.

The sample was 20 licensed practical and registered nurses working on the same unit. The nurses were divided into two groups of ten. The first group has been through 16 weeks of cross training and are functioning as an empowered patient focused care team. The second group has not yet been chosen for a care team and have not changed the way care is delivered. Both groups filled out the Work Environment Scale (WES), a 90 true/false question tool designed to measure the nurses perception of their environment, and a demographic information sheet.

Descriptive, correlational, and comparative statistics were used to answer the research questions posed in this study. Significance was found at p being < 0.05 and higher levels.

The results of this study suggests that nurses perception of their work environment may be influenced by the care delivery method used to deliver care. Nurses who were giving care in a patient focused care delivery system perceived that they were more involved, had more peer cohesion and supervisor support, worked more autonomously, were task orientated, had work clarity, and were innovative.

In order to survive financially, hospitals must develop cost effective way to deliver care. A PFC model may provides one avenue to achieve this goal. This study suggests that nurses derive greater satisfaction giving care in a PFC environment. Further study needs to be done on this subject with larger sample groups.

Copyright

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