Abstract
In 2001 the Saiseikai Yokohama-shi Nanbu Hospital introduced a critical pathway in order to standardize medical services and promote team medical care. This survey examines the effects of this critical pathway's introduction by investigating the nurses' consciousness towards it through a questionnaire survey.
The survey results show that overall medical diagnosis and treatment as well as nursing care at each department were standardized and services' effectiveness has been improving. Some areas though still show insufficient results in regard to medical treatment and patient services and there remains the necessity to review the causes.Moreover, nurses seemed to be reluctant to changes and additional orders by physicians, but tended to continue their routine work. Additionally the survey results show that risk management and team medical care had not been approved sufficiently by the introduction of this critical pathway and further studies are necessary to improve it in this direction.
