The effects in assistance indicators of changes on a nursing team

Abstract

Introduction: This article discusses the path of healthcare associated infections (HAI) indicators in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a public teaching hospital in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, after certain change in its nursing staff: pair of nursing caregivers. The model of a pair of caregivers consists in assigning one nurse and one nursing technician for every three patients. The indicators analyzed were infection related to central venous catheters (CVCs), the risk of HAI, turnover, and absenteeism. Objective: The objective of this paper is to understand the impact of the restructuring of the nursing staff in Human Resources and on the rate of infection in the ICU. Methods: As for methods, it is a qualitative and descriptive research carried out as a case study. Results: The results have shown that the risk of HAIs significantly increased after the change in staffing, but the density of vascular access infection associated with CVCs was drastically reduced. The results of turnover of nursing technics decreased and the turnover of nurses increased while the absenteeism of the nursing team decreased after the change. The interviews revealed that there was a gain at the care due to the change. Conclusion: As a conclusion, the results of the study have shown that the proposed nursing model caused a care gain, once the interviews exposed that and indicator directly related to nursing team care (infection associated with CVCs) decreased.