Identifying Standard Times and Factors Influencing Nursing Workload: a Step Towards the Development of a Workload Measurement Tool?

In view of the significant impact of an excessively high workload on both the patients and the nurses, determining the number of nurses needed in order to offer high-quality care on a ward has been a challenge for some time now. The overall aim of this book is to make a step towards the development of a workload measurement tool. This book can help to develop a workload measurement tool, by the development of a methodology for determining standard times of nursing activities, the construction of a workload model, the identification and quantification of factors influencing the nursing workload and the determination of methods to correct the sum of standard times. The results of this study can be helpful for either nursing managers who want to focus on the allocation of nurses over the different nursing wards of their hospital, or researchers in the field of nursing workload.