Current status investigation of nursing support system in the central and eastern of China among the second grade hospitals

Objective To explore the support status in nursing work among the second grade hospitals from such perspectives as the allocation of nursing human resources, logistics support system and nursing management model in the central and eastern regions of China. Methods Totally 63 second grade hospitals in 13 provinces were investigated by a self-designed questionnaire including the general information, general hospital circumstances, construction of nurse team, hospital logistic support, nursing function, etc. Results Among 63 second grade hospitals, all of them had adopted responsibility nursing system, and 82.54% hospitals were going to the stage of "start, prepare, acquire achievement" for nurse position management. For nurse allocation, bed/nurse ratio was 1∶(0.54±0.17) in average, and 39.68% of hospital own less than 50% of nursing graduated from junior college or beyond, 58.73% of hospital having more then 60% of nurses occupying Charge Nurse occupational title or below, 73.2% of hospital having more than 25% of nurses less than 3 years work experience, and 69.84 of hospital having no personal care assistant. Logistics support system: only 30.2% hospitals had care works and 12.7% hospitals had full-time staff to configuration intravenous fluid. In the logistic support system, more than 50% hospitals already arrange specially-assigned person for collecting and sending sterilize items, specimen, sending patients for examination, maintaining ward order and clean, but just 12.7% hospital had specially-assigned person for IV liquid configuration. At the aspect of nursing management, there were over 90% hospital carrying out quality control management, in service, nurses resource adjustment within hospital, 61.9% hospital involving nursing recruitment and nurse manager appointed and dismissed, 41.27% hospital distributing money award by job performance. Conclusions The hospitals in the central and eastern regions of China have widely practiced quality care service and gradually implement nurse position management. In the support system for care work, the allocation of human resources have improved. However, the team structure still shows the young age, low job title and educational level, still having gap with national one two five planning. In addition, logistics support system needs to be improved and the vertical management doesn′t carry out well. Second grade hospitals would strengthen the support for care work based on their own features so that it can promote the process of nursing reform. Key words: Nursing management; Logistic support; Human resource allocation; Second grade hospital