Translational Acceleration, Rotational Speed, and Joint Angle of Patients Related to Correct/Incorrect Methods of Transfer Skills by Nurses.

Currently, due to shortages in the nursing faculty and low access to actual patients, it is difficult for students to receive feedback from teachers and practice with actual patients to obtain clinic experience. Thus, both evaluation systems and simulated patients have become urgent requirements. Accordingly, this study proposes a method to evaluate the nurse's transfer skill through observation from the patient. After verifying the proposed method, it will be integrated with a robotic patient as a future work. To verify if such an evaluation is practical, a checklist comprising 16 steps with correct and incorrect methods was proposed by the nursing teachers. Further, the evaluation parameters were determined as translational acceleration, rotational speed, and joint angle of patient. Inertial sensors and motion capture were employed to measure the translational acceleration, rotational speed, and joint angle. An experiment was conducted with two nursing teachers, who were asked to carry out both correct and incorrect methods. According to the results, three parameters reveal the difference for a patient under correct/incorrect methods and can further be used to evaluate the nurse's skill once the thresholds are determined. In addition, the applicability of inertial sensors is confirmed for the use of robot development.

Relationship between nursing students' preference for types of teaching materials and learning effects of self-learning tool.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between learning effects of the self-learning tool for nursing students and types of teaching materials. Ten nursing students were asked to perform transfer a patient from bed to wheelchair after watching the demo video and practicing 20 minutes. The students' performance was evaluated before and after practicing. The students were also asked to choose teaching materials that would be developed in the future. Out of nine teaching materials, the students chose seven of them. Correspondence analysis was conducted between the results of the evaluation of students' transfer technique and their preference of teaching materials. The results indicated that there was no relationship between the preference of teaching materials and the scores of transfer techniques. The authors concluded that the self-learning was not affected by the preference of teaching materials.

Importance of work environments on hospital outcomes in nine countries.

PURPOSE: To determine the effect of hospital work environments on hospital outcomes across multiple countries. DESIGN: Primary survey data using a common instrument were collected from separate cross sections of 98 116 bedside care nurses practising in 1406 hospitals in 9 countries between 1999 and 2009. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction, patient readiness for hospital discharge and quality of patient care. RESULTS: High nurse burnout was found in hospitals in all countries except Germany, and ranged from roughly a third of nurses to about 60% of nurses in South Korea and Japan. Job dissatisfaction among nurses was close to 20% in most countries and as high as 60% in Japan. Close to half or more of nurses in every country lacked confidence that patients could care for themselves following discharge. Quality-of-care rated as fair or poor varied from 11% in Canada to 68% in South Korea. Between one-quarter and one-third of hospitals in each country were judged to have poor work environments. Working in a hospital with a better work environment was associated with significantly lower odds of nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction and with better quality-of-care outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Poor hospital work environments are common and are associated with negative outcomes for nurses and quality of care. Improving work environments holds promise for nurse retention and better quality of patient care.

Poor work environments and nurse inexperience are associated with burnout, job dissatisfaction and quality deficits in Japanese hospitals.

AIMS: To describe nurse burnout, job dissatisfaction and quality of care in Japanese hospitals and to determine how these outcomes are associated with work environment factors. BACKGROUND: Nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction are associated with poor nurse retention and uneven quality of care in other countries but comprehensive data have been lacking on Japan. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of 5956 staff nurses on 302 units in 19 acute hospitals in Japan. METHODS: Nurses were provided information about years of experience, completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and reported on resource adequacy and working relations with doctors using the Nursing Work Index-Revised. RESULTS: Fifty-six per cent of nurses scored high on burnout, 60% were dissatisfied with their jobs and 59% ranked quality of care as only fair or poor. About one-third had fewer than four years of experience and more than two-thirds had less than 10. Only one in five nurses reported there were enough registered nurses to provide quality care and more than half reported that teamwork between nurses and physicians was lacking. The odds on high burnout, job dissatisfaction and poor-fair quality of care were twice as high in hospitals with 50% inexperienced nurses than with 20% inexperienced nurses and 40% higher in hospitals where nurses had less satisfactory relations with physicians. Nurses in poorly staffed hospitals were 50% more likely to exhibit burnout, twice as likely to be dissatisfied and 75% more likely to report poor or fair quality care than nurses in better staffed hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Improved nurse staffing and working relationships with physicians may reduce nurse burnout, job dissatisfaction and low nurse-assessed quality of care. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Staff nurses should engage supervisors and medical staff in discussions about retaining more experienced nurses at the bedside, implementing strategies to enhance clinical staffing and identifying ways to improve nurse-physician working relations.

Nurses' views on the use, quality and user satisfaction with electronic medical records: questionnaire development.

AIM: This paper is a report of the development of an instrument to measure nurses' views on the use, quality and user satisfaction with electronic medical records systems. BACKGROUND: Use of electronic medical records systems in hospitals is steadily increasing, yet no validated instruments have assessed the effectiveness of these systems from the viewpoint of nurses. METHOD: Items were designed following a literature review based on three main constructs: use, quality and user satisfaction with electronic medical records. Reliability and validity were examined based on responses from 1,666 nurses from 42 hospitals in Japan in February 2006. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the degree to which each item within a construct was associated. The reliability of each resultant factor was computed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Content validity was addressed by basing the items on previous surveys and review of the instrument by a panel of nurses experienced in nursing informatics. Construct validity was examined through factor analysis and correlational analyses. FINDINGS: Extent of 'use' of electronic medical records resulted into three factors with good factor loadings, but only two had acceptable reliability. 'Quality' of electronic medical records had two factors with good factor loadings and reliability. 'User satisfaction' with electronic medical records had three factors, but only one had acceptable reliability. 'Use' and 'quality' constructs were positively correlated with 'user satisfaction'. CONCLUSION: The final instrument incorporates 34 items from the original 44-item pool. Initial validity results were positive and therefore the instrument can be used in evaluating electronic medical records in hospitals.