Time Flies When You Deliver Care: An International Inventory of Promising, Innovative Routes Towards More Efficiency in Health Care

The workload in nursing is high, with nurses reporting that they omit or delay crucial nursing activities due to a lack of time. In this study a wide search for innovations that can save time was conducted, and international experts were surveyed on potential time savers. Time savers are also relevant because the business case for safe patient handling and mobility programs becomes stronger once other outcome variables besides sick leave and health claims are included. Time is an important and common key variable in outcome variables. A range of innovations that claim to reduce time was found. However, the evidence is often minimal, research naturally lags behind the introduction of innovations, and results are difficult to interpret due to a lack of detail and standardization. Experts in health care acknowledge this. They mention partly similar time savers, but also focus on solving the opposite: time wasters. A more alert research agenda and standardization of measurements may stimulate awareness of the impact of innovations, allow reliable and valid comparisons of the effects, and help to face the current and future challenges in health care.

Knibbe, H, Knibbe, N

Key Words: efficiency, ergonomics, time, missed nursing care, safe patient handling