The assessment of the complexity of care through the clinical nursing information system in clinical practice: a study protocol.

BACKGROUND The costs of nursing staff amounts to approximately 50% of the total budget of the health workforce and accounts for 20% to 30% of the total costs incurred by the health care companies. The goal of the study, by analyzing the complexity of care, is to provide a quantification of the assistance delivered, through the assessment of the technical aspects of the welfare activities according to the variable of time. Data from these activities flow into the clinical nursing information system Professional Assessment Instrument - PAI - which is used at the health facility involved in this study. This instrument allows nurses to document the nursing process in electronic format by using a standardized nursing language (nursing diagnoses, nursing interventions and nursing outcomes). METHODS The design of the study is observational. The participants will be patients that are hospitalized in the cardiology departments, the intensive care units for cardiac and thoracic surgery, pulmonary medicine and medical oncology of the "A.Gemelli" hospital in Rome, Italy. The observers who will carry out the surveys will be students of the nursing degree course and the coordinators of the respective wards. The times recorded for each health care activity will be correlated with variables that are defined in the literature as the indicators of the complexity of care. The research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the "A. Gemelli" Hospital in June 2015. RESULTS In terms of results, this study aims to verify the reliability of the Professional Assessment Instrument tool as a system for the classification and measurement of nursing care which includes the entire care process, taking into account all of the variables deemed crucial to the nursing care effort. CONCLUSIONS This study will provide a tool for the assessment of the complexity of care, with the goal of improving the quality of care for the patients and of interacting with the health administration system for the management of resources.