Inaugural Issue
Spring 2003
Vol.1 | No. 1

Sidebar Stories

A Matter of Complexity

Toward More Time at the Bedside

Who Will Care for Us?

A Model Nurse Manager

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Toward More Time at the Bedside

One of the pilot studies conducted through the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care at Johns Hopkins Hospital is taking place in the 28-bed post-operative care unit run by nurse manager Jennifer Janecek, MSN ’01. Janecek and her colleagues conducted minute-by-minute time-motion studies of nurses on the unit. The results revealed that nurses spent only 30 percent of their time at the bedside. The rest of the time they were doing documentation, retrieving medications, and other tasks. On average, the nurses on the unit walked one mile every hour.

So Janecek and her nursing staff set a bold goal: to increase the amount of time nurses spend at the bedside to 90 percent. As a first step, they introduced several time-saving innovations. They are having bedside cabinets built, which will be used to contain commonly used supplies such as dressings, saline, and extra linens; and they are purchasing special beds that have internal scales for weighing patients.

Janecek is continuing to study other innovations that will improve patient care, but already, she says, the changes she has introduced have helped her reduce the nurse vacancy rate, which has declined from 50 percent two years ago to 20 percent today.

— MH