gms | German Medical Science

Background: The rapid increase of cancer patients and the complexity of care needs may increase the nursing workload. Heavy workload has been associated with job dissatisfaction, burnout and may reduce the quality of care and patient safety. Balanced workload within a team during a shift might decrease these negative outcomes. The Oncology Acuity Tool quantifies the severity of illness and nursing care intensity in inpatient oncology units. It’s used to assign available resources to the care needs of patients prospectively and should allow balancing nursing workload within a team during a shift. The feasibility and effectiveness of OAT based nurse assignments in Swiss inpatient oncology units has not been investigated so far.

Purpose: The overall goal of this pilot study is to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of the OAT based nurse assignment in hospitalised oncology units. This will allow to:

a) describe acuity of hospitalized cancer patients over different times, shifts

b) investigate the associations between the OAT-based nurse assignments on the perceived workload and oncology focused adverse events.

Method: An exploratory study using a pre-post design will be conducted during six weeks, in five units of three hospitals. Equal numbers of observations on the system, nurse and patient level, before and after the introduction of the OAT over four weeks (two weeks pre and two weeks post) will be gathered. The OAT will be introduced in week three-four.

Conclusion: Findings of the study will provide important guidance on the use of oncology acuity tools in Switzerland.