Analysis of Working Time of Nurses in Urban Public Health Center Branches in South Korea.: Focused on Nurses for Visiting Health Service and Chronic Disease Management

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate working time of nurses in urban public health center branch, especially for nurses for visiting health service and chronic disease management. METHOD: Daily note, which was developed by this research team, was distributed to nurses at 7 urban public health center branches to be filled out them for 2 weeks during 2 month from June 2007 to August 2007. We analyzed 121 daily notes recorded by visiting nurses and 65 daily notes written by chronic disease management nurses were analyzed. RESULTS: The total working time for visiting nurses at urban public health center branches was 589.85 minutes per day on the average. They spent 147.13 min in actual visiting nursing services, 149.36 min in documenting, 66.94 in preparing, 77.69 min in transferring, and 11.84 min in referring. The total working time for chronic disease management nurses at urban public health center branches was 582.92 minutes per day on the average. They spent 148.77 min in actual chronic disease management services, 120.62 min in documenting, 42.46 min in group education, 37.38 in preparing, and 10.38 min in referring. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study, it is recommended to improve documenting systems and to increase community resources linkage were recommended through the results of this study. The results of this study are expected to be used to plan staffing at urban public health center branches in the future.