MEASURING NURSING WORKLOAD - UNDERSTANDING THE VARIABILITY

The authors present a new multifactorial intensity and complexity of c are model and meta-paradigm that is designed to examine costs, nursing work, and the variability in resource use across patients and environ ments. Relationships were observed among four key variables which incl uded patient-nursing condition, medical condition, caregiver character istics and the environment. Patient-nursing complexity and medical com plexity are commonly measured by nursing diagnosis and DRG or Canadian case mix groupings (CMG) respectively. The complexities associated wi th the work environment had been the least previously studied factors. Environmental complexity factors include both supply and demand dimen sions: scheduling and coordination of procedures, multiple and long pr ocedures, and characteristics and composition of the caregiver team.