Nurses’ perception of workaround use

Workarounds are prevalent within the healthcare community, particularly in frontline nursing care. It has only been recent that the study of workarounds and their impact has emerged within healthcare literature. This interpretive description study was designed to investigate how nurses perceive workarounds, what they think about before, during and after the process, and what patient, environmental, and personal factors they consider during a workaround. Seven participants, including both Registered Nurses and Licenced Practical Nurses participated in interviews. Five themes were identified through qualitative analysis of the interviews highlighting emotional, mental and the professional impact of workarounds for nurses and their patients. The Implications to nursing practice include the value of nurses in creating frontline procedures, the responsibility of nurses to provide, the potential of current workarounds to produce practice based evidence and the need for nurses to be aware of the emotional and mental health risks of workaround use.