The Efforts of Critical Care Nurses to Pass Along Knowledge About Patients

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive, interpretive study was to explore and describe the work of critical care nurses in sharing and discussing their knowledge about patients with other members of the health-care team. Three questions were examined: Which aspects of their understanding of patients do nurses pass along? How is knowledge passed along? To what ends is knowledge passed along? Data collection took place in 2 intensive care units in a tertiary care hospital and involved observation of 10 nurses followed by interviews. Nurses "filled out the picture" for others by passing along knowledge about the patient's status, patient responses over time, interventions that had been beneficial, and the patient as a person. This aspect of nurses' work was facilitated by proximity to both patients and other team members and the inclusion of nurses in multidisciplinary rounds. The results have implications for staffing patterns, the layout of hospital units, the structure of rounds, and nursing education.