Strengthening nursing surveillance in general wards: A practice development approach

Aims and objectives To explore the context and culture of nursing surveillance on an acute care ward. Background Prevention of patient deterioration is primarily a nursing responsibility in hospital. Registered nurses make judgements and act on emerging threats to patient safety through a process of nursing surveillance. Organisational factors that weaken nursing surveillance capacity on general wards increase the need for patient rescue at the end point of clinical deterioration with poorer outcomes. Yet little is known about cultures that enable and sustain ward nursing surveillance for patient safety. Design Workplace observations and semistructured interviews using a critical lens as the first stage of a larger emancipatory practice development project. Methods Researcher immersion including 96 hr of nonparticipant observation with 12 semistructured interviews during July–August 2017. This study adhered to the COREQ guidelines. Results We offer a metaphor of nursing surveillance as the threads that support the very fabric of acute care nursing work. These hidden threads enable nurses to weave the tapestry of care that keeps patients safe. This tapestry is vulnerable to internal and external forces, which weaken the structure, putting patients and staff at risk. Conclusion Understanding local context is essential to supporting practice change. This workplace observation challenges us to find ways to creatively engage nurses with the underlying cultural and systems issues that so often remain hidden from view in the deteriorating patient literature. Relevance to clinical practice Building cultural values that strengthen nursing surveillance is a prerequisite for safe and effective hospital care. As such, practice‐based research that empowers frontline nurses and teams to develop person‐centred workplace cultures can hold the key to unlocking sustainable improvements in patient safety.