Administrative assistant

Abstract: Professional nursing organizations identify nurse manager (NM) support of staff nurses as an essential component of a productive, healthy work environment. Role behaviors that constitute this support must be identified by staff nurses. In this mixed-method study, supportive role behaviors were identified by 2382 staff nurses who completed the investigator-developed Nurse Manager Support Scale. In addition, semistructured interviews were conducted with 446 staff nurses, managers, and physicians from 101 clinical units in 8 Magnet hospitals in which staff nurses had previously confirmed excellent nurse manager support. Through individual and focus group interviews with NM and chief nurse executives in the 8 participating hospitals, the organizational structures and practices that enabled NM to be supportive to staff were determined. The 9 most supportive role behaviors cited by interviewees were as follows: is approachable and safe, cares, "walks the talk," motivates development of self-confidence, gives genuine feedback, provides adequate and competent staffing, "watches our back," promotes group cohesion and teamwork, and resolves conflicts constructively. Supporting structures and programs identified by managers and leaders include the following: "support from the top," peer group support, educational programs and training sessions, a "lived" culture, secretarial or administrative assistant support, private office space, and computer classes and seminars.

Abstract: Different versions of slide and narrative materials portraying the job of administrative assistant were sent to 71 job analysts. The job was portrayed as either interesting or less interesting, and...

Abstract: Objectives: To determine the amount of time senior house officers (SHO) spent performing tasks that could be delegated to a technician or administrative assistant and therefore to quantify the expected benefit that could be obtained by employing such physicians' assistants (PA). Methods: SHOs working in the emergency department were observed for one week by pre-clinical students who had been trained to code and time each task performed by SHOs. Activity was grouped into four categories (clinical, technical, administrative, and other). Those activities in the technical and administrative categories were those we believed could be performed by a PA. Results: The SHOs worked 430 hours in total, of which only 25 hours were not coded due to lack of an observer. Of the 405 hours observed 86.2% of time was accounted for by the various codes. The process of taking a history and examining patients accounted for an average of 22% of coded time. Writing the patient's notes accounted for an average of 20% of coded time. Discussion with relatives and patients accounted for 4.7% of coded time and performing procedures accounted for 5.2% of coded time. On average across all shifts, 15% of coded time was spent doing either technical or administrative tasks. Conclusion: In this department an average of 15% of coded SHOs working time was spent performing administrative and technical tasks, rising to 17% of coded time during a night shift. This is equivalent to an average time of 78 minutes per 10 hour shift/SHO. Most tasks included in these categories could be performed by PAs thus potentially decreasing patient waiting times, improving risk management, allowing doctors to spend more time with their patients, and possibly improving doctors' training.

Abstract: A nation-wide survey was conducted of occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant academic fieldwork coordinators (AFWCs) to describe demographic characteristics and tasks of the role. From the data, 10 clusters of role tasks of the AFWC are described. AFWCs view the position as a final career goal although the majority of respondents reported 5 years or less experience. Administrative assistant support and hours dedicated to fieldwork tasks are higher at the professional level than for occupational therapy assistant AFWCs. AFWCs reported difficulty accomplishing tasks in a 40-h work week and limited time for research and scholarship. Recommendations are provided for recruitment and retention through development of a systematic training program and establishment of a national fieldwork education research agenda.