Greensboro Project Aims To Improve Nurse Workload And Patient Experience

A project in Greensboro has just received a grant to change the way nurses work and patients receive care. Cone Health and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Nursing are looking at what's called a "workload intensity model” for nurses in a hospital setting.

Traditionally, nurses are assigned a certain number of patients for whom they'll care. This model, on the other hand, looks at how much care individual patients might need. The workload and resources are then distributed accordingly.

UNCG researcher Dr. Cynthia Bacon says this approach was successful in a pilot program at Cone Health.

“Patients were more satisfied with things like nurse responsiveness, for example when they would put on their call light to call for help, they perceived the help to be faster," she says. "And there was better communication between the nurses and the patients as a result of this particular system.”

In a profession with high rates of burnout, the benefits for nurses were noticeable as well. During the pilot program, employees were more satisfied with their jobs and there was less turnover. The two-year research project funded by The Duke Endowment began July 1.