The content and meaning of administrative work: a qualitative study of nursing practices.

AIM: To investigate the content and meaning of nurses' administrative work.

BACKGROUND: Nurses often report that administrative work keeps them away from bedside care. The content and meaning of this work remains insufficiently explored.

DESIGN: Comparative case studies.

METHOD: The investigation took place in 2014. It was based on 254 hours of observations and 27 interviews with nurses and staff in two contrasting units: intensive care and long-term care. A time and motion study was also performed over a period of 96 hours.

RESULTS: Documentation and Organizational Activities is composed of six categories; documenting the patient record, coordination, management of patient flow, transmission of information, reporting quality indicators, ordering supplies- stock management Equal amounts of time were spent on these activities in each case. Nurses did not express complaints about documentation in intensive care, whereas they reported feeling frustrated by it in long-term care. These differences reflected the extent to which these activities could be integrated into nurses' clinical work and this is in turn was related to several factors: staff ratios, informatics, and relevance to nursing work.

CONCLUSION: Documentation and Organizational Activities are a main component of care. The meaning nurses attribute to them is dependent on organizational context. These activities are often perceived as competing with bedside care, but this does not have to be the case. The challenge for managers is to fully integrate them into nursing practice. Results also suggest that nurses' Documentation and Organizational Activities should be incorporated into informatics strategies.