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PubMed2006

The study of nursing documentation complexities.

This study aimed to explore complexities in nursing documentation and related factors. Nursing documentation has been one of the most important functions of nurses since the time of Florence Nightingale because it serves multiple and diverse purposes. Current health-care systems require that documentation ensures continuity of care, furnishes legal evidence of the process of care and supports evaluation of quality of patient care. However, nursing documentation has not served such objectives because of its complexities. This study explores nursing documentation complexities and related factors through both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The study used multiple methods of inquiry: in-depth interviewing; participant observation; nominal group processing; focus group meetings; time and motion study of nursing activities; and auditing of completeness of nursing documentation. Complexities in nursing documentation include three aspects: disruption, incompleteness and inappropriate charting. Related factors that influenced documentation comprised: limited nurses' competence, motivation and confidence; ineffective nursing procedures; and inadequate nursing audit, supervision and staff development. These findings suggest that complexities in nursing documentation require extensive resolution and implicitly dictate strategies for nurse managers and nurses to take part in solving these complicated obstacles.

Documentation↗

PubMed2005

Tobacco document research reporting.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the use of internal tobacco industry documents in the peer reviewed health literature. DESIGN: Interpretive analysis of published research. SAMPLE: 173 papers indexed in Medline between 1995 and 2004 that cited tobacco industry documents. ANALYSIS: Information about year published, journal and author, and a set of codes relating to methods reporting, were managed in N*Vivo. This coding formed the basis of an interpretation of tobacco document research reporting. RESULTS: Two types of papers were identified. The first used tobacco documents as the primary data source (A-papers). The second was dedicated to another purpose but cited a small number of documents (B-papers). In B-papers documents were used either to provide a specific example or to support an expansive contention. A-papers contained information about purpose, sources, searching, analysis, and limitations that differed by author and journal and over time. A-papers had no clear methodological context, but used words from three major traditions--interpretive research, positivist research, and history--to describe analysis. INTERPRETATION: A descriptive mainstream form of tobacco document reporting is proposed, initially typical but decreasing, and a continuum of positioning of the researcher, from conduit to constructor. Reporting practices, particularly from experienced researchers, appeared to evolve towards researcher as constructor, with later papers showing more complex purposes, diverse sources, and detail of searching and analysis. Tobacco document research could learn from existing research traditions: a model for planning and evaluating tobacco document research is presented.

Authorship↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Improved documentation of wound care with a structured encounter form in the pediatric emergency department.

OBJECTIVE: Accurate and complete documentation may enhance reimbursement and compliance with financial intermediary regulations, protect against litigation, and improve patient care. We measured the effect of introduction of a structured encounter form on the completeness of documentation of pediatric wound management in a teaching hospital. METHODS: The Children's Hospital Emergency Department introduced a structured encounter form for use in the documentation of wound care in place of the existing free-text dictation method. Attending physicians and trainees, all unaware of the study, had the option of using the form in place of free-text dictation for patients with lacerations requiring closure. We abstracted 100 consecutive free-text dictations from patients treated before the form's introduction. Following a 3-month run-in period, we abstracted 100 consecutive structured wound records. We compared the 2 chart types for completeness of documentation based on 20 predetermined criteria relevant to pediatric wound care. RESULTS: Overall completeness of documentation improved with structured forms (80% vs 68% for free text, P < .001), with significant improvements in 6 of 20 individual criteria. Trainees demonstrated improvement in documentation with the structured form, with the greatest improvements among senior-level residents. Documentation of the general physical examination worsened with structured charting. DISCUSSION: In an academic pediatric emergency department, the use of a structured complaint-specific form improved overall completeness of wound-care documentation. Structured encounter forms may provide for more standardized documentation for a variety of pediatric chief complaints, thereby facilitating communication and ultimately transition to template-driven systems in anticipation of an electronic medical record.

California↗

PubMed1998

Documentation of child physical abuse: how far have we come?

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effects of increased physician training and a structured clinical form on physician documentation of child physical abuse. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review. PARTICIPANTS: Children evaluated in the pediatric emergency department in 1980 and 1995 who were given the diagnosis of physical abuse. MEASUREMENTS: The unstructured pediatric emergency department form and the structured child abuse reporting form were reviewed for documentation of 20 items including history, physical examination, diagnostic procedures, and disposition. Data documented in 1980 were compared with that in 1995. RESULTS: The only significant differences between 1980 and 1995 concerning documentation on the unstructured pediatric emergency department form were better recording in the latter year of Child Protective Services involvement and case disposition. Half or more of the records omitted documentation of at least one of the following: witnesses to injury, past injuries, description of size and/or color of injuries, illustration, and a genital exam. None of the records contained a developmental history. Significantly fewer skeletal surveys were obtained in 1995, although notation of the results was similar to 1980. For both years, the structured child abuse reporting form improved documentation of only two items: time of arrival to the pediatric emergency department and illustrations of injuries. CONCLUSIONS: Little improvement in physician documentation of child physical abuse was noted between 1980 and 1995 despite increased efforts to educate housestaff in the evaluation of child abuse during this time period. Although a structured form prompted physicians to document dates and times and to illustrate physical injuries on the diagram provided, it did not significantly improve documentation of other items.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Law courts and clinical documentation].

Background. Until 2004, requests for clinical documentation proceeding from the Judicial Administration on Specialist Care of Pamplona were received in six different centres and were processed independently, with different procedures, and documents were even sent in duplicate, with the resulting work load. This article describes the procedure for processing requests for documentation proceeding from the Law Courts and analyses the requests received. Methods. A circuit was set up to channel the judicial requests that arrived at the Specialist Health Care Centres of Pamplona and at the Juridical Regime Service of the Health System of Navarra-Osasunbidea, and a Higher Technician in Health Documentation was contracted to centralise these requests. A proceedings protocol was established to unify criteria and speed up the process, and a database was designed to register the proceedings. Results. In the course of 2004, 210 requests for documentation by legal requirement were received. Of these, 24 were claims of patrimonial responsibility and 13 were requested by lawyers with the patient's authorisation. The most frequent jurisdictional order was penal (43.33%). Ninety-three point one five percent (93.15%) of the requests proceeded from law courts in the autonomous community of Navarra. The centre that received the greatest number of requests was the "Príncipe de Viana" Consultation Centre (33.73%).The most frequently requested documentation was a copy of reports (109) and a copy of the complete clinical record (39). On two occasions the original clinical record was required. The average time of response was 6.6 days. Conclusions. The centralisation of administration has brought greater agility to the process and homogeneity in the criteria of processing. Less time is involved in preparing and dispatching the documentation, the dispatch of duplicate documents is avoided, the work load has been reduced and the dispersal of documentation is avoided, a situation that guarantees greater privacy for the patient.

Documentation↗

PubMed1999

[Standardized wound documentation of chronic wounds].

Owing to the long periods of treatment and multi-factoral etiology of chronic wounds, standardized wound documentation is necessary to enable judgement of the course of healing. We have developed a documentation system which permits a standardized assessment of chronic wounds by means of defined parameters and graded divisions. Besides containing the diagnostic and therapeutic measures which have been carried out, the documentation should also contain parameters of wound healing. These are the following: wound localisation, size of wound, degree of injury, infection, and wound morphology. Planimetry and photographic documentation complete the documentation. Thus a documented course of healing can be presented, which enables rapid retrospective analysis and, if needed, a change in therapeutic approach at an early stage. This complete, exact documentation is required by modern administration of justice and is a protection against the reversal of the onus of proof in lawsuits. The extent of documentation can be adapted to the individual needs of the institution responsible for treatment. However, a minimal amount of documentation should always include localisation of the wound, size, the diagnostic and therapeutic measures, and complications if any.

Chronic Disease↗

PubMed2005

[Quality assurance in palliative medicine--results of the core documentation of 1999-2002].

Quality assurance has been started in palliative care units since 1999, using a documentation project based on yearly documentation periods. The project was developed by a working party of palliative care specialists in cooperation with the German Cancer Society and the German Association for Palliative Medicine. The aim was a concise but meaningful standard documentation, able to describe the special therapeutic situation of palliative care patients and the interdisciplinary and multi-professional care they receive. In this paper, data of 4693 in-patient treatment periods relating to structural, procedural and outcome quality of palliative care units are presented from the beginning of the core documentation in 1999 through 2001. In 2002, data from palliative care units were compared with those from oncologic and geriatric wards, as well as hospices. Palliative care units show constant traits since the beginning of the core documentation in 1999, in spite of the rising number of participants. At the same time, there are distinct differences among the groups of participants due to the scope of their therapeutic setting. These relate to structure quality in the functional status of the patients (ECOG), which is worst in hospices (> palliative care units > geriatric wards > oncologic wards); to process quality in intensified pain treatment concerning incidence and intensity of pain, which is most frequent and severe in palliative care units (> hospices > geriatric > oncologic wards); and outcome quality in the rate of discharge home, which is highest in oncologic wards (> geriatric > palliative care units > hospices). Quality assurance in palliative care is difficult due to complex indicators, which should be assessed in a standardised documentation. The core documentation was established as a quality assurance programme for palliative care patients. The results of the previous evaluations have enabled the development of a standard documentation. The continuous application of such a standard documentation will prove the quality improvement and development of the participating units.

Documentation↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Use of general-purpose negation detection to augment concept indexing of medical documents: a quantitative study using the UMLS.

OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that most instances of negated concepts in dictated medical documents can be detected by a strategy that relies on tools developed for the parsing of formal (computer) languages-specifically, a lexical scanner ("lexer") that uses regular expressions to generate a finite state machine, and a parser that relies on a restricted subset of context-free grammars, known as LALR(1) grammars. METHODS: A diverse training set of 40 medical documents from a variety of specialties was manually inspected and used to develop a program (Negfinder) that contained rules to recognize a large set of negated patterns occurring in the text. Negfinder's lexer and parser were developed using tools normally used to generate programming language compilers. The input to Negfinder consisted of medical narrative that was preprocessed to recognize UMLS concepts: the text of a recognized concept had been replaced with a coded representation that included its UMLS concept ID. The program generated an index with one entry per instance of a concept in the document, where the presence or absence of negation of that concept was recorded. This information was used to mark up the text of each document by color-coding it to make it easier to inspect. The parser was then evaluated in two ways: 1) a test set of 60 documents (30 discharge summaries, 30 surgical notes) marked-up by Negfinder was inspected visually to quantify false-positive and false-negative results; and 2) a different test set of 10 documents was independently examined for negatives by a human observer and by Negfinder, and the results were compared. RESULTS: In the first evaluation using marked-up documents, 8,358 instances of UMLS concepts were detected in the 60 documents, of which 544 were negations detected by the program and verified by human observation (true-positive results, or TPs). Thirteen instances were wrongly flagged as negated (false-positive results, or FPs), and the program missed 27 instances of negation (false-negative results, or FNs), yielding a sensitivity of 95.3 percent and a specificity of 97.7 percent. In the second evaluation using independent negation detection, 1,869 concepts were detected in 10 documents, with 135 TPs, 12 FPs, and 6 FNs, yielding a sensitivity of 95.7 percent and a specificity of 91.8 percent. One of the words "no," "denies/denied," "not," or "without" was present in 92.5 percent of all negations. CONCLUSIONS: Negation of most concepts in medical narrative can be reliably detected by a simple strategy. The reliability of detection depends on several factors, the most important being the accuracy of concept matching.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

PubMed2005

Disease and intolerability documentation in electronic patient records.

BACKGROUND: Documentation of diseases and intolerabilities in electronic patient records (EPRs) in pharmacies is needed to produce an alert in case a contraindicated medicine is prescribed. Limited research is available concerning EPRs in pharmacies. OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence and quality of documentation of diseases and intolerabilities in EPRs in a sample of Dutch community pharmacies. METHODS: Each participating pharmacy (N = 79) collected data on one day in May 2003 for each patient enrolled into the study (N = 687) concerning demographics, drug use, and documentation of diseases and intolerabilities. RESULTS: In 57.4% of the EPRs, at least one disease and, in 7.9%, at least one intolerability was documented. Higher age, number of drugs used, and chronic disease score were associated with any documentation of a disease/intolerability in the EPR. The highest sensitivity scores (completeness) were found for diabetes (84.7%), asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (strict definition: 75.9%), and hypothyroidism (75.0%). Rather low values were found for prostatic hyperplasia (55.6%) and heart failure (29.4%). The positive predictive value (reliability) was high for hypothyroidism (100%) and diabetes (87.1%). CONCLUSIONS: In a selection of Dutch pharmacies, at least one documented disease and/or intolerability was found in the EPR of almost 60% of the patients. Certain diseases were documented to a relatively high degree; others had poorer levels of documentation. For optimal surveillance of drug-disease interactions in pharmacies, the frequency and quality of disease and intolerability documentation need further improvement.

Community Pharmacy Services↗

PubMed2002

Essentials of documentation in interventional pain medicine.

Documentation in interventional pain medicine is an important, and, at times, most crucial facet of practice. For physicians, documentation has always meant providing information or evidence on multiple issues, including evaluation and management services, procedural services, billing and coding. With the increasing sophistication and complexity of interventional medical practices, the need to record specific clinical data has grown in importance. Documentation reflects competency, character and caring of the pain management specialists. The Office of the Inspector General reported overpayments of $23.3 billion in 1996, $20.3 billion in 1997, $12.6 billion in 1998, $13.5 billion in 1999, $11.9 billion in 2000, and $12.1 billion in 2001 in health fraud. Thus, the government has been increasing its efforts to prevent fraud and abuse by reducing the error rate for Medicare-fee-for-service and by improving documentation. Documentation errors have contributed to 70% to 80% of the errors. This review describes various elements of documentation, documentation standards and the government's perspective on documentation, as well as the process of documentation.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2004

Documentation of 7051 chronic wounds using a new computerized system within a network of wound care centers.

HYPOTHESIS: Wound care can be prospectively recorded on a large scale if a standardized wound documentation system is established. Based on such a documentation system, a network of specialized wound care centers can generate a large and valid database of wound characteristics, wound-healing dynamics, and wound care. DESIGN: A clinical prospective analysis. SETTING: Ten German specialized surgical wound care centers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In a 2-year pilot phase, 4175 patients with 7051 chronic nonhealing wounds were documented using a new computerized system and treated following defined standards. RESULTS: A total of 1761 diabetic, 1349 venous, 1146 ischemic, 1079 pressure, and 759 postoperative nonhealing wounds and 957 ulcers with other causes were prospectively documented. Chronicity of ulceration was shown by the long wound duration of 433 days (range, 14-1867 days). Wound documentation was well integrated into daily practice, as shown by a mean +/- SD documentation time of 5.7 +/- 2.2 minutes per visit. A multivariate analysis of factors known to interfere with wound healing revealed significant effects of patient compliance, grading of wound depth, and patient age (P<.001 for all). CONCLUSIONS: The German Wound Net achieved, for the first time, centralized and prospective documentation of more than 7000 chronic wounds treated according to defined guidelines. This new concept of a network of specialized wound care centers working with standardized treatment plans and prospective documentation of chronic wounds may open a new dimension for wound-healing studies and may represent an optimal platform for multicenter trials.

Chronic Disease↗

PubMed2004

[Quality management and strategic consequences of assessing documentation and coding under the German Diagnostic Related Groups system].

INTRODUCTION: The introduction of the German Diagnostic Related Groups (D-DRG) system requires redesigning administrative patient management strategies. Wrong coding leads to inaccurate grouping and endangers the reimbursement of treatment costs. This situation emphasizes the roles of documentation and coding as factors of economical success. PURPOSE: The aims of this study were to assess the quantity and quality of initial documentation and coding (ICD-10 and OPS-301) and find operative strategies to improve efficiency and strategic means to ensure optimal documentation and coding quality. METHODS: In a prospective study, documentation and coding quality were evaluated in a standardized way by weekly assessment. RESULTS: Clinical data from 1385 inpatients were processed for initial correctness and quality of documentation and coding. Principal diagnoses were found to be accurate in 82.7% of cases, inexact in 7.1%, and wrong in 10.1%. Effects on financial returns occurred in 16%. Based on these findings, an optimized, interdisciplinary, and multiprofessional workflow on medical documentation, coding, and data control was developed. CONCLUSIONS: Workflow incorporating regular assessment of documentation and coding quality is required by the DRG system to ensure efficient accounting of hospital services. Interdisciplinary and multiprofessional cooperation is recognized to be an important factor in establishing an efficient workflow in medical documentation and coding.

Diagnosis-Related Groups↗

PubMed1999

[Computer-assisted performance documentation. Effects in orthopedics and trauma surgery on budgets and reimbursement].

Since 1995 German health maintenance laws require hospitals to document and code all referrals, admissions and discharges using the 4-digit ICD. Operative procedures are documented and coded using the ICPM. Beginning in January 1996, reimbursement for health services requires a diagnosis-related billing and payment for special procedures. The decision for billing is based on documented diagnosis and therapy. This extended request for documentation makes an online access to diagnosis and therapy with a computer-assisted coding system advisable. In 1996 in our hospital each diagnosis and operation was manually documented and coded on a form. Since the beginning of 1997, documentation and coding has been exclusively computer-assisted. On the basis of documented diagnosis and therapy the computer provides the route of reimbursement. Retrospectively we evaluated the number of charged diagnosis-related billings and payments for special procedures from January to April of 1996 and 1997. It became evident that with computer-assisted documentation and coding the number of detected and charged diagnosis-related billings and payments for special procedures was significantly increased in comparison with the previous year.

Budgets↗

PubMed1999

[Standardized computer-based documentation system for diagnoses and medical performance in orthopedics and traumatology. Development and initial application].

INTRODUCTION: Increasing demands on quality assurance und medical performance documentation require an immediate and evaluable documentation in the outpatients' department. Presentation of a new computer-based diagnostic system for reporting and medical performance documentation. METHODS: Development and initial application of the system in three big orthopedical or traumatological hospitals. Judgements about the feasibility of immediate documentation in outpatients' departments. RESULTS: Presentation of an outpatients' departments diagnostic system with textblock-oriented anamnesis or anatomy-related diagnosis through pre-structured examination checklists. Coding of ICD-9/-10 as well as AO-classification and AIS (abbreviated injury scale). Implementation of scorings. Medical performance documentation through forms including pre-defined billing codes. Presentation of the documentation flow and its transfer into other contexts. DISCUSSION: Pure text-based clinical results do not allow sufficient evaluation for quality assurance and medical performance documentation. However, a computer-based and immediate documentation in outpatients' departments should not mean a significantly increased workload for physicians.

Documentation↗

PubMed2003

[Documentation in the cardiac catheterization laboratory using electronic databases--experiences in 176 German cath labs].

Due to the introduction of a variety of new features to the German health system, such as a new reimbursement system for inpatient work based on diagnosis-related groups, an obligation to detailed documentation for total quality management, as well as due to the continuing increase in the amount of imaging and other data within invasive cardiology, the use of electronic databases for documentation in the cardiac cath lab is of significant importance. The user friendliness and robustness of the software system for daily clinical practice is crucial for the acceptance of electronic documentation systems by physicians, nurses and technicians. This survey was aimed to explore the current practice and experiences of German cardiac catheterization labs with electronic databases particularly designed for documentation in invasive cardiology, including report generation of cath studies, risk and complication management and logistics for medical material ordering for the cath lab. Of the 176 hospitals and practices having agreed in taking part in this surveillance 165, are currently using an electronic database for administration of medical data and study reports. In 64% of the cath labs, a sub-specialized software system for detailed documentation of the course and the results of an invasive procedure, the human and material resources used, generation of the cath report, and documentation of procedural and post-procedural complications for total quality management is used. The acceptance and satisfaction with the software solutions currently available reveals to be rather inhomogeneous. While user-friendliness and flexibility of a number of software products were positively mentioned, main issues, such as missing hardware of software interfaces with the hospital information system for patient administration, missing stability of several systems, image management too complex and report configuration too inconvenient for daily clinical practice, were criticized. In general, in the light of continuing increase of the amount of clinical and imaging data as well as due to the legal obligation of detailed procedural documentation in all areas of invasive cardiology, a documentation system based on electronic databases bears the potential of an enormous economization of the daily workload of a cardiac cath lab. Prerequisites for the acceptance of such a system in clinical practice is not only the stability and reliability of the system but also the ability to link such a sub-system to existing databases via suitable interfaces and the flexibility of the system for modification of its features to meet the individual requirements of each user.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Documentation of discussions about prognosis with terminally ill patients.

PURPOSE: Previous studies have suggested the importance of communicating with patients about prognosis at the end of life, yet the prevalence, content, and consequences of such communication have not been fully investigated. The purposes of this study were to estimate the proportion of terminally ill inpatients with documented discussions about prognosis, describe the nature and correlates of such discussions, and assess the association between documented discussions about prognosis and subsequent advance care planning. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Inpatients (n = 232) at least 65 years old who had brain, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, or inoperable lung cancer were randomly selected from six randomly chosen community hospitals in Connecticut. The presence and content of discussions about prognosis, advanced care planning efforts, and sociodemographic and clinical factors were ascertained by comprehensive review of medical records using a standardized abstraction form. RESULTS: Discussions about prognosis were documented in the medical records of 89 (38%) patients. Physicians and patients were both present during the discussion in 46 (52%) of these cases. Time until expected death was infrequently documented. Having a documented discussion about prognosis was associated with documented discussions of life-sustaining treatments (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 5.8; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.8 to 12.0) and having a do-not-resuscitate order (adjusted OR = 2.2; 95% CI: 1.1 to 4.2). CONCLUSIONS: Among terminally ill patients with cancer, discussions about prognosis as documented in medical charts are infrequent and limited in scope. In some cases, such documented discussions may be important catalysts for subsequent discussions of patient and family preferences regarding treatment and future care.

Advance Directives↗

PubMed2000

A pain monitoring program for nurses: effects on communication, assessment and documentation of patients' pain.

Nurses need to be informed about the patient's pain to be able to take appropriate measures to alleviate pain. However, communication, assessment, and documentation of pain by nurses is often a problemfor hospitalized patients. In this study we aimed to overcome the main barriers by developing, implementing, and evaluating a Pain Monitoring Program (PMP) for nurses. The PMP consists of two components: educating nurses about pain, pain assessment and pain management; and implementing daily pain assessment by means of a numeric rating scale. We describe the effects of the PMP on communication about pain between nurses and patients and between physicians and patients, agreement between patients 'pain intensity and nurses estimations of patients'pain intensity, and documentation about pain in the nursing records. Factors that might influence communication, assessment, and documentation are also discussed. The effects of the PMP were measured in a quasi-experimental design with a nonequivalent control group. In total, 703 patients participated: 358 patients in the control group and 345 in the intervention group. Results of the control group showed that communication about pain between nurses and patients, agreement between patients' and nurses pain ratings, and documentation about pain in nursing records, remain inadequate. Patients'pain intensity and age were related to communication, assessment, and documentation. Communication and documentation is better in patients with moderate to severe pain than in patients with mild pain, and assessment is better in patients with mild pain. Older patients communicate less with nurses and physicians about pain, and nurses document less about pain in nursing recordsfor older patients compared with younger patients. The PMPproved to be effective in improving nurses'assessment of patients 'pain and documentation about pain in nursing records. Patients' pain intensity and care setting were related to the efficacy of the PMP Communication about pain between patients and nurses, and between patients and physicians did not improve as a result of the PAIP Based on this study it can be concluded that in using a simple method such as the numeric rating scale, together with an education program, attention is focused in a systematic way on patients'pain complaints and creates a common language between patients and nurses. Because the PMP proved effective in a heterogenous population in multiple care settings, it is recommended to implement the PMP in nursing practice.

Aged↗

PubMed1999

Review of nursing documentation in nursing home wards - changes after intervention for individualized care.

Using standardized assessment instruments may help staff identify needs, problems and resources which could be a basis for nursing care, and facilitate and improve the quality of documentation. The Resident Assessment Instrument/Minimum Data Set (RAI/MDS) especially developed for the care of elderly people, was used as a basis for individualized and documented nursing care. This study was carried out to compare nursing documentation in three nursing home wards in Sweden, before and after a one-year period of supervised intervention. The review of documentation focused on structure and content in both nursing care plans and daily notes. The greatest change seen after intervention was the writing of care plans for the individual patients. Daily notes increased both in total and within parts of the nursing process used, but reflected mostly temporary situations. Even though the documentation of nursing care increased the most, it was the theme medical treatment which was the most extensive overall. A difference was seen between computer-triggered Resident Assessment Protocol (RAP) items, obtained from the RAI/MDS assessments, and items in the nursing care plans; the former could be regarded as a means of quality assurance and of making staff aware of the need for further discussions. The RAI/MDS instrument seems to be a useful tool for the dynamic process in nursing care delivered and as a basis for documentation. The documentation should communicate a patient's situation and progress, and if staff are to be able to use it in their everyday nursing care activity, it must be well-structured and freely available. The importance of continuing education and supervision in nursing documentation for development of a reliable source of information was confirmed by the present study.

Aged↗