How is the nursing activity shown by the Spanish regional health ministries?

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the nursing records and the results of their activity published by the Spanish regional health ministries.

Method: Descriptive observational study by two observers with web search engines locating the activity reports of the regional health organizations. The existence of activity information related to "nursing/nurse/midwife" was evaluated for each institutional web page. The indicators of care results, quality and clinical safety and their presentation were analysed.

Results: Preparation of a table including 19 public health services entries with specific indicators/records of nursing activity for each one, based on 56 institutional websites. The most frequently resulting profile of indicators is activity shown disaggregated by health areas, from 2019, in "PDF" format, without gender or age vision, focused on the number of consultations, frequentation and healthcare pressure in primary care.

Conclusions: The supply of health indicators presents a great state variability. Regional qualitative and quantitative contributions can be valued, focused more on structure, on measuring activity for management and at the level of primary care but with little focus on measuring good practices. It is confirmed that the published information does not reflect the reality of nursing activity. Being striking the deficiency of hospital activity indicators.

Keywords: Acceso público a la información; Datos sanitarios; Enfermería; Healthcare data; Nurse; Nursing records; Public access to information; Public health services; Registros enfermeros; Servicio público de salud; Transparencia; Transparency.