Abstract
A nurse concurrently performs nursing actions or cares corresponding to each patient assigned to her/him. Recently medical practice in hospital ward is often performed under a treatment plan between hospitalization and discharge, which is called clinical pathway (CP). However, a method to estimate necessary working hours (NWH) for nurses based on CP is not found. Therefore, we have devised a simulation method based on CPs which are concurrently processed, and forward studies using the method. Features of the method are the followings; 1) breaking each element of treatment and care into detailed units, 2) measuring the minutes needed to perform the unit, and 3) totaling up the minutes. Using the method, a primary nurse, ordinary nurse or care worker's NWH values can be estimated. In this paper, the method is applied to CP of coronary artery bypass grafting, obtained results are consistent with actual conditions. In the case of an NWH value per hour in coronary artery angiography indicates crushing labor, two countermeasures are simulated. The results show that the one of them is effective in reducing the values.
