The paper aims at clarifying how new concept of "Personal Nursing Base (PNB)"influences nursing activities in acute hospital wards in Japan. The PNB is defined as nursing base closely located to patients' beds either in the form of fixed setting or on wheels, stemming from dissemination of computerized medical and patients' record system in a hospital. The followings are the results of the surveys carried out in four hospital wards; 1) The length of direct nursing time is around 50% of total nursing duties and it has not become longer by computerization. 2) The current PC on a wheel system does not work efficiently at this moment. 3) Nurses stay longer in close to patients in PNB wards despite of the fact that direct patient care time does not increase. 4) Walking distance of nurses becomes shorter in wards which have fixed setting type of PNB.
